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41 Grotiana (n.s.) 1 (2020)

handle is hein.journals/grotia41 and id is 1 raw text is: GROTIANA 41 (2020) 1-12 G ROTIANA BRILL brill.com/grot Hugo Grotius's Views on Consent, Contract and the Christian Commonwealth - Introductory Remarks Wim Decock KU Leuven/ULiege, Belgium wim.decock@kuleuven.be In textbooks on international law, Grotius's De iure belli ac pacis is frequently cited as proof of the Protestant origins of international law. Reaching back to Enlightenment commentaries on Grotius, this claim was reinforced at the threshold of the twentieth century and has prospered ever since, thanks to Hamilton Vreeland Jr.'s influential biography designating Grotius as the 'father of the modern science of international law'.1 Not unlike Weber's account of the 'Protestant origins of capitalism', this claim has developed into a grand narrative about the 'Protestant origins of modern international law' that has become popular not only among jurists, but also historians, philosophers and political scientists. Yet, this claim must be nuanced,2 and against the back- ground of growing confessional rivalry between Protestants and Catholics at the turn of the twentieth century, it has also been subject to criticism. Catho- lic jurists trying to vindicate the importance of their own tradition have de- veloped a counter-narrative. James Brown Scott, the American 'dean of in- ternational law', played a crucial role in this endeavor. He emphasized the fundamental contribution to the rise of modern natural and international law by Catholic te6logos-juristas, notably Francisco de Vitoria and Francis- co Suarez.3 Scott's endeavor, however, was born not out of mere academic 1 H. Vreeland Jr., Hugo Grotius: The Father of the Modern Science of International Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 1917). 2 M. Becker, Kriegsrecht imfruhneuzeitlichen Protestantismus. Fine Untersuchung zum Beitrag lutherischer und reformierter Theologen, Juristen und anderer GelehrterzurKriegsrechtslitera- tur im 16. und 17.Jahrhundert (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017). 3 Conservative forces in the Spanish-speaking world had an obvious interest in promoting this view, see I. de la Rasilla del Moral, In the Shadow of Vitoria: A History of InternationalLaw in Spain (1770-1953) (Leiden/Boston: Brill/Nijhoff, 2018), pp. 154f. See also W. Decock and C. Birr, Recht und Moral in der Scholastik der Fruhen Neuzeit 1500-1750 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), pp. 77-78. © KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 1 DOI:10.1163/18760759-04101001