Hugo Grotius

Hugo Grotius (1583 to 1645), also called Hugo de Groot, was a Dutch humanist, diplomat, lawyer, theologian, jurist and poet, born in Delft and educated at Leiden University, which he entered at eleven. He was imprisoned at Loevestein Castle over the religious controversies of the Dutch Republic and escaped hidden in a chest of books, writing most of his major works in exile in France. His De jure belli ac pacis (On the Law of War and Peace) and Mare Liberum (The Free Seas) helped lay the foundations of international law, and he argued that rights belong to persons as an ability to act. He also helped shape the idea of a society of states governed by shared law, and took part in the Arminian and Calvinist debate in theology.