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The Right to Punish as a Just Cause of War in Hugo Grotius' Natural Law
Straumann, Benjamin
Straumann, Benjamin
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Abstract
The prominent role of Hugo Grotius' (1583-1645) thought in the history of the concept of natural rights is well known and has been thoroughly discussed in the research literature.[1] What is less well known, and has received considerably less scholarly attention, is the specific design of the various natural rights postulated by Grotius.[2] In Grotius' natural law works, namely in the early De iure praedae commentarius (1604-1606, not published until 1868) and in De iure belli ac pacis libri tres (1625), Grotius developed a series of natural rights that corresponded to a system of just causes of war.[3] According to Grotius, war can be a lawful means to enforce four distinct natural rights: the right to self-defense, the right to private property, the right to the restitution of debts, and the right to punish. These rights correspond to Grotius' four just causes of war: defense, recovery of property, exaction of a debt, and punishment.[4] This latter just cause of war—punishment—, which has not yet received very much scholarly treatment, shall be investigated in the present paper.[5] Grotius' conception of punishment as a natural right and as the corresponding just cause of war is significant to those who study the history of the ethics of war, and has also exerted a considerable influence in the realm of political theory.
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2006
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With permission of the license/copyright holder