Van Bynkershoek's Quaestiones Juris Publici was first published in 1737. The present translation of the First Book by Peter Stephen Du Ponceau appeared in 1810; this translation is now republished by The Lawbook Exchange Ltd., in its series on the Foundations of the Laws of War, with an introduction by William E. Butler.

Although this book is primarily about van Bynkershoek and by van Bynkershoek, the translator features prominently in Butler's informative introduction. Born in France in 1760, Du Ponceau travelled to the United States in 1777 and remained there for the rest of his life, becoming a successful lawyer in Philadelphia. Du Ponceau was a prolific writer, chiefly in the fields of law and history, and a man with a prodigious command of languages. This ability, together with his knowledge of Roman, European, and American law, resulted in an extraordinary translation. Extraordinary not only on account of the fluency and skill of the translation itself but also on account of the annotations that appear in footnotes to the text which display the erudition of the translator and his familiarity with the laws of many jurisdictions. Although the translator is clearly dedicated to van Bynkershoek, as appears from the Preface to the translation, he does not hesitate to express his disagreement when compelled to do so. The translation was published in 1810, soon after the Dutch Republic had ceased to exist. Du Ponceau eulogizes the Republic in the most gracious terms:

Cornelius van Bynkershoek (also spelled ‘Çornelis’ and ‘Bijnkershoek’) was born in Middelburg in 1673 and studied at the Frisian University of Franeker. (In passing, one may ask why this university has not been restored to its former glory.) A student of Roman law, international law and Roman-Dutch law, he was an advocate in The Hague before becoming a judge, and later president, of the Supreme Court of Holland, Zeeland, and West Friesland. He was a prolific writer, and his writings on Roman-Dutch law are still cited as authority in the courts of southern Africa. Quaestiones Juris Publici is his best-known work in the field of international law. To be more accurate, the First Book in Quaestiones – De Rebus Bellicis – is his best-known work. Unlike the other book in Quaestiones, which deals with both Dutch law and international law, the First Book is devoted almost entirely to international law and stands on its own, hence the decision of the translator to offer only a translation of the First Book.

Grotius and van Bynkershoek were the two greatest Dutch international lawyers of the Dutch Republic. Today Grotius is more acclaimed because of the breadth of his writing, his comprehensive coverage of the law, and the depth of his scholarship in De Jure Belli ac Pacis. There is an unfortunate tendency to dismiss van Bynkershoek as a narrow positivist concerned largely with the practice of states in an age in which legal positivism has been discredited. This is unfair. Like Grotius, van Bynkershoek believed that reason had a role to play in the formation of the law. He should more accurately be described as a natural lawyer more familiar with and concerned about the practice of states than Grotius – that is, a natural lawyer with positivist leanings. His work is as essential for an understanding of the evolution of international law as that of Grotius. Together their writings provide evidence of the development of international law in a world in which recourse was to be made to reason, history, and, increasingly, state practice, where, as was often the case, the law was silent. As Du Ponceau says of De Rebus Bellicis, ‘to be unacquainted with it, is a disgrace to the lawyer and to the statesman’ (p. vi).

Van Bynkershoek's discourse on the laws of war is hopelessly out of date. It portrays a world order in which the savagery of war was untempered by considerations of humanity (although van Bynkershoek himself on occasion invokes humanity as a factor to be taken into account: p. 22) For van Bynkershoek, ‘everything is lawful against an enemy’ (p. 2). Many of the subjects examined are of historical interest only, such as whether war was to be declared (a proposition with which van Bynkershoek disagreed), whether prisoners might be enslaved (opposed by van Bynkershoek), and the law governing privateers. Other subjects considered still feature in the laws of war but have lost much of their significance in a world in which topics considered important by van Bynkershoek, such as prize, the confiscation of enemy property, contraband, blockade, trading with the enemy, and the use of mercenaries, have undergone important changes as a result of the Charter of the United Nations and other modern developments. In one respect, however, van Bynkershoek's study is more civilized than a modern discourse on the laws of war. It is concerned mainly with the rules governing combatants or those engaged in illicit trade or conduct and not with the treatment of civilians – a matter which has become of primary concern for contemporary humanitarian law as a result of the failure of armed forces to distinguish between military and civilian targets.

Some of the topics considered have a modern resonance, even if their treatment is very different from that of today. Piracy is a matter of special concern to van Bynkershoek. He struggles, like the contemporary lawyer, to find an acceptable definition of piracy and pays particular attention to the Barbary pirates, who in some ways resemble modern-day Somali pirates. However, he asserts that the Barbary states were not to be viewed as pirate or illegal states but as proper states with fixed territories, established governments, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. The proper forum or jurisdiction for the trial of pirates is examined and the issue of universal jurisdiction raised: ‘It is more difficult to decide, whether a foreigner who has committed depredations on other foreigners, may, if he should be found among us, be tried by our tribunals?’ (p. 136). The punishment for piracy was clear: death, although the method of inflicting death was to be left to the discretion of the judge.

The law of reprisals is another subject of interest. Although van Bynkershoek wrote in an era in which forcible reprisals were permitted, he was determined to restrict recourse to reprisals except in limited circumstances and ‘only in case of denial of justice’ (p. 184).

Although the contemporary international lawyer may find the subject matter of van Bynkershoek's treatise of little guidance in dealing with modern problems and largely out of date, she will find the legal method employed decidedly modern, for van Bynkershoek uses sources and reasoning in the manner of modern lawyers. In this respect he is well ahead of Grotius, whose use of philosophical, historical, and biblical sources is strange to lawyers of today. Van Bynkershoek draws on a wide range of legal sources: the judicial decisions of many countries, state practice, and the writings of Roman, Dutch, and foreign jurists. If the law is unclear in the sense that the positivist sources do not offer clear guidance, then recourse to reason is permissible for ‘reason is the soul of the law of nations’ (p. 11). Van Bynkershoek is not uncritical of many of the sources. Judicial decisions, writers, and state practice (often Dutch state practice) are robustly criticized. Moreover, he is particularly critical of arguments based on ‘reason of state’:

Historical discourse is increasingly being relegated to the dustbin of history. It no longer enjoys a central place in school or university education. Legal history is a rare course in most modern law schools. This is particularly true, one is sadly compelled to observe, in Dutch law schools, where the glorious writers of the Dutch Republic, such as Grotius, Antonius Matthaeus, Groenewegen, Van Leeuwen, Huber, Johannes Voet, van Bynkershoek, Van Der Keessel, and Van Der Linden, are completely unknown. International law education is no better, either in the Netherlands or elsewhere. Students probably know the names of Grotius and Vattel, but neither the names nor works of many others. Van Bynkershoek is a key figure in the history of international law and it is a ‘disgrace’ (to use the word of Du Ponceau) not to know something about him. The present work will, hopefully, do something to redress this situation.