Natural Justice And War: A Study On Grotius's Thoughts On The Law Of Wa

As an outstanding Dutch scholar in the 17 th century,Grotius has always enjoyed the double laurels of the father of natural law and the father of international law.He believes that making decisions solely based on written law regarding acts involving international rather than domestic war is futile,and therefore it is necessary to study the legal stance to establish a foundation for resolving war issues.In the emergence of modern nation-states on the European continent,he incorporated the value dimension of natural justice into war and used it as a criterion to determine the reasons for initiating war,the limits of its conduct,and the ultimate purpose,thus answering the urgent issue of what a just war is.Grotius understood the proposition of natural justice from the perspective of legal power.Based on the individual’s "privilege" and the "law" at the level of substantive law,justice has the attribute of "being something legitimate in itself",that is,natural justice.Compared to Aristotle,Grotius to some extent abandoned his pursuit of high standards of justice and instead sought to construct "full legal power" from the lowest level of justice,thus better balancing the natural justice requirements of classical politics with the reality of law that requires a highly elastic space.At the same time,the reason why Grotius emphasized natural justice was to distinguish legal justice from political justice.The latter denied the existence of natural justice and believed that its sources were all from the interests of the strong,which was precisely what Grotius vigorously avoided,because this proposition would only exacerbate conflicts between sovereign states and not benefit the creation of order.The starting point of Grotius’ whole thought of the law of war is based on the natural law of self preservation,while the inherent rationality of human beings tends to social life,both of which together outline the longitude and latitude for the justice of war.The marriage of self-interest and sociality nurtures natural justice concepts such as moderation,equality,and integrity,which must be upheld and constrained in the process of war.Finally,the glorious and legitimate peace emphasized by Grotius is not only the end of the state of war,but more importantly,the purpose of war is still to eliminate the potential dangers of peace.