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How to Handle the Grotian Heritage: Grotius and Van Vollenhoven*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2009

P.H. Kooijmans
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Extract

In 1918, just before the end of the First World War, a booklet of barely ninety pages was published in the Hague under the title “De Drie Treden van het Volkenrecht” (in English “The Three Stages in the Evolution of the Law of Nations”). For a work dealing with a subject relating to international law, it was an incredible success: it was twice reprinted in its Dutch version and was translated into French, German and English. The key to its success may well have been its simple plot: as in a Punch and Judy show, the cast had but two main characters – the good boy and the bad boy. The hero was Hugo Grotius, whose 400th birthday we are commemorating this year; the villain was Eméric de Vattel, a man who wrote a book in 1758 in which, according to the author of “The Three Stages”, he gave a Judas kiss to the hero precisely at the moment that he might have become victorious. The author leaves us in no doubt where his sympathies lie; the lines in which he characterizes the qualities of his two leading characters by comparing their Christian names have become quite famous: “the Dutchman is called Hugh (Huig in Dutch), a bluff and sturdy name; the other is called Emeric: the name of a balletmaster‥”.

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Articles
Information
Netherlands International Law Review , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , May 1983 , pp. 81 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Press 1983

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References

1. van Vollenhoven, C., The Three Stages in the Evolution of the Law of Nations (The Hague 1919) p. 26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Ibid., p. 98.

3. Ibid., p. 15.

4. van Vollenhoven, C., “Grotius and Genva”, in Bibliotheca Visserianum VI (Leyden 1926) p. 13 et seqGoogle Scholar.

5. “Grotius and Geneva”, p. 21 et seq.; see also, van Vollenhoven, C., “Het theorema van Grotius”, in Verspreide Geschriften, vol. I, (Haarlem/The Hague 1934) pp. 461–8Google Scholar.

6. “Grotius and Geneva,” p. 30.

7. Reprinted in Verspreide Geschriften, vol. II, pp. 3–143; in particular at p. 19 et seq.; pp. 83–4; pp. 138–9.

8. See, e.g., “Roeping van Holland” in Verspreide Geschriften, vol. II, pp. 144–57.

9. The Three Stages, p. 88.

10. The Three Stages, p. 17.

11. Oudendijk, Johanna K., “Van Vollenhoven's ‘The Three Stages in the Evolution of the Law of Nations’. A case of wishful thinking”, in Ti/dschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis, vol. 48 (1980), pp. 3–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. Oudendijk, loc. cit., pp. 7–8.

13. Ibid., pp. 9–10.

14. Ibid., p. 23.

15. Ibid., p. 27.

16. Ibid., p. 26.

17. Reibstein, Ernst, “Die Dialektik der souveränen Gleichheit bei Vattel”, in Zeitschrift für ausländisches offentliches Recht and Völkerrecht, vol. 19 (1958), pp. 607–36Google Scholar; see also, Kooijmans, , The Doctrine of the Legal Equality of States, (Leyden 1964) pp. 83–9Google Scholar.

18. Kooijmans, , op. cit., p. 87Google Scholar.

19. “Grotius and Geneva,” p. 5.

20. Oudendijk, J.K., De beoefening van de volkenrechtsgeschiedenis (Leyden 1962), p. 17Google Scholar.

21. The Three Stages, p. 62.

22. van Vollenhoven, C., “Een Volkenrecht zonder oorlog”, in Verspreide Geschriften, vol. II, pp. 685–9Google Scholar; “Na het afzweren van den eigenbaat oorlog”, Ibid., pp. 690–2.

23. Cited in Claude, Inir, Power and International Relations, (New York 1962) p. 159Google Scholar.

24. GA Res. 377 (V) part A, of 3 November 1950.

25. Landheer, B., “The Grotian model of a world-system”, in Grotiana, vol. I, p. 25Google Scholar.

26. The Three Stages, p. 71.

27. Landheer, , loc. cit., p. 23Google Scholar.

28. Edwards, Charles S., Hugo Grotius, The Miracle of Holland. A Study in Political Thought (Chicago 1981) p. xixGoogle Scholar.

29. See also, Kooijmans, , op. cit, p. 66 et seqGoogle Scholar.

30. Edwards, , op. cit., p. xixGoogle Scholar.

31. Landheer, , loc. cit., p. 26Google Scholar.

32. Grotius, , De Jure Belliac Pads Ubn Tres (1625) Prol. 27Google Scholar.

33. Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1976, Vol. II, part 2 (A/CN.4./Ser. A/1976/Add. 1 (Part 2)), p. 97, paia. 6.

34. Ibid., p. 120, para. 62.

35. see e.g. Gaja, G., “Jus Cogens beyond the Vienna Convention”, in Receuil des Cours de l'Académie de Droit International vol. 172 (1981, III), p. 271 et seq.Google Scholar; Marek, K., “Criminalizing State Responsibility” in Revue beige de droit international, vol. 14 (1978–1979, p. 460 et seqGoogle Scholar.

36. Ibid., p. 102, para. 17.

37. Edwards, , op. cit., p. XIIIGoogle Scholar.

38. Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacts Libri Tres, Prol. 28.