Chapter 6 Invisible People

The State of Nature in Hugo Grotius’ Account of Global Legal Order

In: The State of Nature: Histories of an Idea
Author:
Emile Simpson
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Abstract

This chapter considers how Hugo Grotius’ (1583–1645) account of the state of nature represented a move, in legal terms at least, to urbanise the extra-civil condition, as opposed to drawing a sharp divide between nature and the city. The model of urbanisation was that of the Roman city. Grotius’ account of the state of nature is best understood as a state of natural liberty, but as one in which it was nonetheless possible to subject others to servitude, and even to slavery. Once subjected in the state of nature, a person, or a whole people, became legally invisible. In this way, the state of natural liberty remained, at least on its visible surface, an account of free people, and free peoples. This account of the state of natural liberty provided Grotius with a means to account for empire that would inform the later development of international law.

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