Benjamin Straumann

This book offers a new interpretation of the foundations of Hugo Grotius' highly influential doctrine of natural law and natural rights.

Roman Law in the State of Nature

Roman Law in the State of Nature offers a new interpretation of the foundations of Hugo Grotius' natural law theory. Surveying the significance of texts from classical antiquity, Benjamin Straumann argues that certain classical texts, namely Roman law and a specifically Ciceronian brand of Stoicism, were particularly influential for Grotius in the construction of his theory of natural law. The book asserts that Grotius, a humanist steeped in Roman law, had many reasons to employ Roman tradition and explains how Cicero's ethics and Roman law - secular and offering a doctrine of the freedom of the high seas - were ideally suited to provide the rules for Grotius' state of nature. This fascinating new study offers historians, classicists and political theorists a fresh account of the historical background of the development of natural rights, natural law and of international legal norms as they emerged in seventeenth-century early modern Europe.

The Classical Foundations of Hugo Grotius' Natural Law

Benedict Kingsbury

This book explores ways in which both the theory and the practice of international politics was built upon Roman private and public law foundations on a variety of issues including the organization and limitation of war, peace settlements, embassies, commerce, and shipping.

Benjamin Straumann

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