The Capture of the Santa Catarina (1603)

By 1602, the newly formed Dutch East India Company (VOC) was threatening Portugal’s monopoly over the Asian spice trade. In response, the Portuguese government designed an extensive campaign to drive out the Dutch from the East Indies. Outraged by the atrocities the Portuguese inflicted on the Dutch and their allies, Admiral Van Heemskerck – sailing in the Strait of Singapore – prepared to retaliate against the Portuguese. After spending months of looking for a Portuguese ship to capture, they at last found one on that morning of February 25, 1603. And not just any ship, but the treasure ship Santa Catarina. The ship and its cargo ended up as booty of war and were taken back to Europe. The incident of the Santa Catarina was most certainly not uncontroversial from a legal point of view …

Academy Students visit the Grotius Collection

During the Public Law Session of the Hague Academy, students from Colombia, South-Korea, Bulgaria, Brazil, Greece, India, Mexico, Jordan, Australia and Hungary had the opportunity to pay a visit to the illustrious Hugo Grotius Collection of the Peace Palace Library. The Peace Palace Library holds the largest Hugo Grotius Collection in the world. It’s considered one of the most important collections which are housed by the Peace Palace Library as the works of Grotius play a major role in the study of the history of international law.

Legislating Peace: From the Outlawry of War to the Crime of Aggression, 3-4 July 2018

Dialogue and Speeches. Venue: Peace Palace Library and the Nieuwe Kerk, Delft

Grotiana, Volume 38 (2017)

Grotiana appears under the auspices of the Grotiana Foundation. The journal’s leading objective is the furtherance of the Grotian tradition. It welcomes any relevant contribution to a better understanding of Grotius’ life and works. The Library contributes with a bibliography on Grotius.

Sovereignty and Territorial Temptation: The Grotian Tendency

This powerful book stands on its head the most venerated tradition in international law and discusses the challenges of scarcity, sovereignty, and territorial temptation. Newly emergent resources, accessible through global climate change, discovery, or technological advancement, highlight time-tested problems of sovereignty and challenge liberal internationalism’s promise of beneficial or shared solutions. From the High Arctic to the hyper-arid reaches of the Atacama Desert, from the South China Sea to the history of the law of the sea, from doctrinal and scholarly treatments to institutional forms of global governance, the historically recurring problem of territorial temptation in the ageless age of scarcity calls into question the future of the global commons, and illuminates the tendency among states to share resources, but only when necessary.

Grotiana, 37 (2017)

Please, view the newest edition of Grotiana. The journal’s leading objective is the furtherance of the Grotian tradition.

Just Peace Festival: Peace Palace Library – In the Footsteps of …

Visit the Library during The Hague Open Doors Day 2016 and meet four historical figures who have provided an important contribution to the Library and international law.

New Publication Available Grotiana, Volume 36 (2015)

Bibliotheek van het Vredespaleis viert 200 jaar Nederlandse Grondwet

On Saturday 29 March, the Netherlands will celebrate the 200-year anniversary of the 1814 Constitution. During the so-called Grondwetfestival (Constitution Festival) government buildings normally off limits to the public, like the Catshuis and Trêveszaal, will open especially for this occasion. The Peace Palace Library will also participate in this event with an interactive tour – in Dutch – explaining the relationship between the Dutch Constitution and international law. [Further information in Dutch]

Why did the Peace Palace open its Doors on 28 August 1913?

Not coincidentally, the Peace Palace opened its doors on 28 August 1913, two-hundred-and-sixty-eight years to the day that Grotius had died in Rostock, Germany. That same year, the Dutch publisher Martinus Nijhoff gifted 55 editions of Grotius’ De Jure Belli ac Pacis (first published in 1625) to the Peace Palace Library, which would become the nucleus of the PPL’s famous Grotiana collection.