Grotius, Natural Law, and the Balance of Power

Hugo Grotius, a Dutch jurist, theologian, and diplomat born in Delft in 1583, is conventionally credited as a founding figure of modern international law, though he built on a long prior tradition rather than inventing the field outright. His early work Mare Liberum (The Free Sea), published in 1609, defended the Dutch East India Company's right to trade in the East Indies against Portuguese claims of exclusive dominion over the seas, arguing that the high seas could not be subject to national appropriation because they were inexhaustible and necessary to all peoples. This tract, written as advocacy for a Dutch commercial and political cause, nonetheless articulated a principle—freedom of navigation and trade on the open sea—that would remain central to the law of the sea for the next three centuries.