Book contents
- The Cambridge History of Rights
- The Cambridge History of Rights
- the cambridge history of Rights
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors to Volume III
- General Introduction
- A Note on Translations
- Introduction to Volume III
- 1 Roman Law
- 2 Natural Rights
- 3 Historic Rights in Sixteenth-Century France
- 4 Common Law Rights
- 5 The Right of States to Self-Preservation
- 6 The Right of Natural Persons to Self-Preservation
- 7 Divine Right in Early Modern Political Thought
- 8 The Right to Punish
- 9 The Rights of War and Peace
- 10 The Right of Navigation
- 11 The Right to Trade, 1500–1700
- 12 The Right to Property
- 13 Fair Trials in Law
- 14 Freedom of Religion
- 15 The Right of Resistance
- 16 The Right to Political Participation and Representation
- 17 Rights and Power in Early Modern Feminism
- 18 Gender and Rights
- 19 The Rights of Women
- 20 The Rights of the Insane
- 21 The Rights of Asylum
- 22 The Rights of Peoples in Spain and Its Empire
- 23 The Rights of People in the English Empire
- 24 Rights in the Seventeenth-Century French Empire
- 25 Rights, Authority, and Autonomy
- Index
- References
5 - The Right of States to Self-Preservation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 January 2026
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of Rights
- The Cambridge History of Rights
- the cambridge history of Rights
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors to Volume III
- General Introduction
- A Note on Translations
- Introduction to Volume III
- 1 Roman Law
- 2 Natural Rights
- 3 Historic Rights in Sixteenth-Century France
- 4 Common Law Rights
- 5 The Right of States to Self-Preservation
- 6 The Right of Natural Persons to Self-Preservation
- 7 Divine Right in Early Modern Political Thought
- 8 The Right to Punish
- 9 The Rights of War and Peace
- 10 The Right of Navigation
- 11 The Right to Trade, 1500–1700
- 12 The Right to Property
- 13 Fair Trials in Law
- 14 Freedom of Religion
- 15 The Right of Resistance
- 16 The Right to Political Participation and Representation
- 17 Rights and Power in Early Modern Feminism
- 18 Gender and Rights
- 19 The Rights of Women
- 20 The Rights of the Insane
- 21 The Rights of Asylum
- 22 The Rights of Peoples in Spain and Its Empire
- 23 The Rights of People in the English Empire
- 24 Rights in the Seventeenth-Century French Empire
- 25 Rights, Authority, and Autonomy
- Index
- References
Summary
Since Richard Tuck published his influential study The Rights of War and Peace in 1999, the works of the Italian civil lawyer and Regius professor of civil law at the University of Oxford, Alberico Gentili (1552-1608), have received much scholarly attention. Tuck presented Gentili as the foremost representative of the ‘humanist’ tradition in the domain of the law of war, and he also attempted to show that the early political writings the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (1583-1643) wrote as ‘a major apology for the whole Dutch commercial expansion into the Indies’, were very much in this same tradition. Although Tuck referred in this context mainly to De Indis as well as to the first edition of De jure belli ac pacis of 1625 and conceded that Grotius introduced a different, more substantial account of human sociability in the later editions of his main work, his assessment of Grotius’ natural law theory has triggered numerous critiques and prompted scholars to compare Gentili’s and Grotius’ position on various issues.
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- The Cambridge History of Rights , pp. 120 - 144Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
References
Further Reading
Christov, T., Before Anarchy: Hobbes and His Critics in Modern International Thought (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015).Google Scholar
Fitzmaurice, A., Sovereignty, Property and Empire, 1500–2000 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kingsbury, B., and Straumann, B. (eds.), The Roman Foundations of the Law of Nations: Alberico Gentili and the Justice of Empire (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
May, L., Limiting Leviathan: Hobbes on Law and International Relations (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014).Google Scholar
Panizza, D., Alberico Gentili, giurista ideologo dell’Inghilterra elisabettana (Padova, La Garangola, 1981).Google Scholar
Saastamoinen, K., “Pufendorf on the Law of Sociality and The Law of Nations,” in Zurbuchen, S. (ed.), The Law of Nations and Natural Law, 1625–1800 (Leiden, Brill, 2019), pp. 107–31.Google Scholar
Schröder, P., Trust in Early Modern International Political Thought, 1598–1713 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Straumann, B., Roman Law in the State of Nature: The Classical Foundations of Hugo Grotius’ Natural Law, trans. B. Cooper (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuck, R., The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
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