Mare Liberum

Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics

by Hugo Grotius, Alex Struik (Editor)

"Mare Liberum" is a book (originally written in Latin) on international law written by the Dutch jurist and philosopher Hugo Grotius. In Mare Liberum, Grotius formulated the new principle that the sea was international territory and all nations were free to use it for seafaring trade. The disputation was directed towards the Portuguese Mare Clausum policy and their claim of monopoly on the East Indian Trade. Grotius wrote the treatise while counsel to the Dutch East India Company over the seizure of the Portuguese carrack "Santa Catarina".

Hugo Grotius (10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645), was a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law. He was also a philosopher, theologian, Christian apologist, playwright, and poet.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Law, History, Classics, Nonfiction

83 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1609

About the author

Hugo Grotius [Hugo, Huigh or Hugeianus de Groot] was a towering figure in philosophy, political theory, law and associated fields during the seventeenth century and for hundreds of years afterwards. His work ranged over a wide array of topics, though he is best known to philosophers today for his contributions to the natural law theories of normativity which emerged in the later medieval and early modern periods.

Reviews

[rafael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wasn't particularly thrilled, to be honest. If this wasn't a seminal work in international law, I wouldn't have gone near it. In any case, Grotius goes on at length about the "natural" and "God-given" (his words) rights of nation-states to conduct trade and to sail the seas unimpeded. To the modern/postmodern mind, he makes fairly straightforward, almost tautological, claims.

There is a bit of a surprising current of progressivism as well, only in the sense that he acknowledges that European explorers didn't actually discover sh*t. He was Dutch, so of course he was inclined to call out the Portuguese for supposedly "discovering" things like the Cape of Good Hope. Grotius rightly points out that other non-European societies--not least of which the very natives who lived in the region--were well aware of the geographical and nautical features of the landscapes and seascapes in which they lived. Having said that, the idea of a "mare liberum" or "free/open sea" has, for better or worse, been instrumental in ushering in the age of imperialism via mercantilism and, later on, global capitalism itself (and with it, rampant inequality, durable poverty, imminent ecological collapse, et cetera, et cetera).

[Amber Manning · Rating 2 out of 5]

...nothing like deploying the idea of a "free sea" to justify colonialism.

[Henrik Schilder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Understand the world its past and its future

Hugo Grotius has good reasons to write this book as a defense for the Dutch interest in the struggle with the Spanish crown.
But he does it in a neat way. The book had impressive impact for posterity.
If you want to understand the struggle for the Chinese sea today, read The Free Sea.

[Станислав · Rating 4 out of 5]

Эпоха Великих географических открытий превратило море из враждебной человеку среды в источник роста укрепившихся европейских государств. Началась гонка за новыми землями. Опережая другие страны в своих морских предприятиях, Португалия и Испания, заручились поддержкой Ватикана (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter_c...) заключили https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_... Тордесильясский договор о фактическом разделе мира за пределами Европы. Что привело к созданию режима https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mare_cl... - Закрытого моря. Растущие морские страны: Франция, Англия, Нидерланды, а за ними и другие европейские страны начали опротестовывать это поспешное решение: пушками флотов, абордажными саблями флибустьеров и пером таких учёных как Гуго Гроций.
Автор многих произведений - Гуго Гроций нам известен почти исключительно за "О праве войны и мира", произведения охватывающего многие темы, но настолько собранного из самого разного античного материала, что кажется автор принадлежит поздне-римской эпохе, а не 17 веку. "Свободное море" является работой более относящемся в веку автора и использованием теории и практики Новой Европы. Если для Испанцев (после унии с Португлией) жизненно-важно было утвердить своё господство на закрытыми морями и океанами, то свободолюбивые нидерландцы (которые потом изгонят Гроция) были яростными поборниками свободы торговли и мореплавания. На помощь Гроцию приходит теория "естественного права", которая здесь даже более рельефна, чем "о праве Войны и мира". Произведение небольшое и чёткое , так что от испанских аргументов, кажется, не остаётся и камня на камня, особенно учитывая падения авторитета Римских Пап после реформации (на это не слишком напирает - в Нидерландах ещё много католиков). Перевод на английский выполнен Ричардом Хаклюйтом - известным английским писателем, но всё же это начало 17 века и все эти архаизмы сложно воспринимать. В приложении приводится часть сочинения Уильям Велвод, шотландского юриста, который не то чтобы защищал закрытые моря Испанцев, но усмотрел у Гроция покушение на тресково-селёдочные богатсва Шотландии, которые никакие Голландцы не могут рыбачить. Гуго позже ответил своими возражениями гораздо более пространного, чем сам трактат, но расплывчатого характера. В дальнейшем эта область права являлась ареной борьбы многих государств и только недавно была урегулирована https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_.... Которую, кстати, не ратифицировали США, что показывает открытость вопроса.

[Vincent Li · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this interesting pamphlet written by the Dutch lawyer and political figure Grotius. The book is an argument as to why the Portuguese cannot exclude the Dutch from the navigation and trade of the East Indies. The entire thing is essentially a brief, and in fact the Dutch East Indies Company paid Grotius to write it.

But frankly the historical background is flavor text for what the argument actually is, which in many ways is quite interesting and occasionally moving. The book opens up with some pretty powerful claims about the law, that it is not just the common practice or what the powerful claim it is, but is independently based on justice. Grotius adds that the powerful and their flatters never want to admit this, but that not all laws are written on tablet or stone but some are etched into the hearts of man by God which are accessibly by anyone human who can understand each other through communication. It'd be really unusual to say the least to see that kind of argument in modern law. Grotius reasons that because of man's shared nature, there are certain natural laws that emerge. Among those rights, Grotius argues are those of trade and travel, because man was made not to be self sufficient, especially of the vast seas. The core of his argument is that the seas are a kind of common property, and cannot be owned by any nation. Grotius cites ancient law but also writers like Virgil and Seneca for that proposition. It was really interesting to see how Grotius argued how the Portuguese did not get title over the seas by discovery (others had previously traveled there, including the natives), conquest (and there is no right to conquer someone for merely not being christian), papal donation (Grotius argues that the pope only resolved issues between spain and Portugal not against the rest of the world, and that the pope has only spiritual power not temporal) or occupation (the sea is not susceptible to fencing off or exclusive occupation, and the Portuguese were not the first to sail there, along with some speculations of ancient mentions of sailing to the East Indies, and if they never did someone else would have). Also particularly interesting to me was Grotius technical argument as to why custom did not override the natural law understanding that the sea was common property. Among other arguments, Grotius argues that custom cannot override natural law, and custom itself disclaims ability to claim public property. Finally, since the Portuguese claims were not beyond time immemorial even under custom's own rules, they could not claim title.

A fascinating read that is both historically interesting but also brilliant legal argumentation. A brief written when lawyers were still learned men.

[Udy Kumra · Rating 4 out of 5]

5 stars. The content was interesting, but because this was translated in the seventeenth century, the language was so hard to parse that I'm sure I missed out on a ton of subtext. I am definitely going to mark this down in stars solely because my professor did not choose the OTHER available translation from the 1970s(?).

Anyway, the discussions here surrounding sovereignty, maritime law, property, etc. were really interesting to dig into. It's not an area I specialize in, certainly, but it was interesting to think about with regards to the class I'm taking. One thing of particular interest is the way this work captures a snapshot in history after the European imperial projects had begun (indeed, this is a legal treatise of sorts about a conflict between the Portuguese and Dutch empires), but before the Europeans started to view their subject peoples as lacking autonomy, sovereignty, and rights, because one of Grotius's chief arguments here AGAINST Portuguese sovereignty over the "Indians" is that the Indians have sovereignty over themselves and are fully autonomous. I could even find you the page number for that!

So anyway, interesting discussions, but seriously, fuck this translation.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise and well written. Contains nice quotes and insights. Offers inspiration for further reading. Relevant for contemporary (geopolitical) situations. Not much to dislike for those interested in philosophy on natural law, common law, property and international law.

"The Dutch must maintain their right of trade with the East Indies by peace, by treaty, or by war." - p72.

[BigHeadWalt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historically significant, dry and written like a legal brief, which it was, essentially, in the 17th century

[Sofia White · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘What the hell man! That’s so unfair! How come they get to exploit and colonise whilst we don’t!! We deserve rights too! No I don’t see the irony in me saying this!’

[dean · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book gave me the biggest headache

[Jake · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read half.

[Jonathan]

None

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

i'm amazed anyone gave it more than three stars. this is one of those had to reads, but yeah it gives a good sense of how imperial international law really was / is.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Enjoyed it for the historical content; enjoyed it even more for its demonstration of excellence in legal argumentation.

[Buciu Petre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grotius wrote this very short treatise as a paid ”lobbyist” on behalf of Dutch East India Company, the world s first transnational corporation. He had the task to justify the seizing of the Santa Catarina Portuguese carrack in 1602, a ship full of Ming Chinese porcelain so expensive that it increased the capital of the Company by more than 50 %. Though the attack, under the command of the Admiral Jacob van Heemskerk, was ordered neither by the company nor by government, the wealth it brought was welcomed by many of its shareholders. The Portuguese demanded the return of their ship and an international scandal broke over the issue, so the representatives of the Company hired the jurist Hugo Grotius to defend the seizure. This is basically how the foundations of the international law were laid.