Hugo Grotius

Born in Delft in 1583, Hugo Grotius was a teenage prodigy who studied at Leiden and moved through roles as diplomat, jurist, theologian, and poet. His involvement in Dutch religious controversies landed him in Loevestein Castle; he broke out concealed in a chest of books meant for his study and fled to France. There, in exile, he produced his major works: De jure belli ac pacis and Mare Liberum, treatises that laid the foundations for international law by defining a society of states governed not by force but by mutual agreement and actual laws. Grotius also shifted the concept of rights from…