JOURNAL: Grotiana XLV (2024), nr. 1

 

(image source: Brill)

Mare Tutum: Thucydides, King Minos, and the Concept of the ‘Secure Sea’ in Seventeenth-Century Maritime Law (Alexander Batson)
DOI 10.1163/18760759-20240005
Abstract:

This article examines a crucial argument in seventeenth-century maritime law: the concept of mare tutum, or ‘the secure sea’. According to this idea, the sea was characterized by chaotic piracy and required a strong central governing authority to impose order. Once the sea was secure, the ruler would reap the rewards of commerce and tariff revenues. Mare tutum espoused the idea of sea sovereignty for the goal of economic growth. Crucial to this idea was Thucydides’ account of the Cretan King Minos. The jurists Nicolaes Bonaert, Pietro Battista Borghi, and Giovanni Palazzi used the model of Minos’ Aegean thalassocracy to argue for Portuguese, Genoese, and Venetian control of the seas. The article illuminates the hitherto unknown importance of Thucydides in maritime law. It also complicates the traditional mare liberum/mare clausum framework by positing a third option which focused on control of the seas as a means to fostering trade and economic growth.

An Unpublished Manuscript of Hugo Grotius: ‘On Public Partnership with Unbelievers’ (De societate publica cum infidelibus): Introduction, Transcription and English Translation [OPEN ACCESS] (Diederik Burgersdijk, Henk Nellen & Marc de Wilde)
DOI 10.1163/18760759-20240001

Abstract:

This introduction presents an analysis of Grotius’s treatise ‘On Public Partnership with Unbelievers’ (De societate publica cum infidelibus). It was probably written between 1606 and 1609, when Grotius served as a legal advisor of the Dutch East India Company (voc). In his treatise, Grotius explains what kinds of partnerships with non-Christians are permissible under divine and natural law. These include public partnerships, such as treaties and military alliances, but also private associations, such as commercial contracts, marriages and relations of servitude. As we argue in this introduction, De societate can be interpreted as a general treatise on legal partnerships with non-Christians, which relates both to the voc’s policies of treaty and alliance-making in the East Indies and to debates about the legal status of religious minorities in the Dutch Republic.

Conference report (Alberto Clerici)

Announcement: the Paul Tweede Prize

Book reviews

• War, States, and International Order: Alberico Gentili and the Foundational Myth of the Laws of War, written by Claire Vergerio (Matthew Cleary)
• Annals of the War in the Low Countries, written by Hugo Grotius (Erik De Bom)
• The Holy Alliance: Liberalism and the Politics of Federation, written by Isaac Nakhimovsky (Edward Jones Corredera)
• Self-Determination in the International Legal System: Whose Claim, to What Right?, written by Tom Sparks (Jamie Trinidad)

Read the full issue here.