In more than one respect the part played by Grotius (1583–1645) in the history of jurisprudence presents perplexing features. His chief glory lies in the department of law; yet he was more of a philologist and of a theologian than of a jurist. He is often called the father of international law; yet his principal book, the famous book of 1625, was not a treatise devoted to international law. His book, by reason of many of its qualities, looks obsolete: written in Latin, full of quotations and authorities unknown to modern readers, silent about medieval and modern history, it is still a young and living book, younger even than it was two centuries ago.

Huig de Groot, whom we know and venerate under the Latinized name of Hugo Grotius, is not a man with one book to his credit; but lawyers of all parts of the world are celebrating the three hundredth anniversary of one work of his, De Jure Belli ac Pacis Libri Tres. It appeared, it would seem, sometime in the month of March, 1625. For many years it was looked upon as a tour deforce, as an extraordinary achievement for a politician in exile and a humanist to his finger-tips to have turned off within the space of a few months a treatise on a dry and admittedly technical subject, whose principles were ill-defined and, where known, were treated with scant respect.

In a preceding article has been described the first edition of the De Jure Belli ac Pacis, printed in Paris by Nicholas Buon in the spring of 1625. It would appear that this first edition was soon exhausted and Grotius set about the preparation of a second edition. He wrote to his brother William, August 29,1625, as follows: “Buon says that the edition of the Apologeticus is exhausted and that he has few remaining copies of the Law of War and Peace. Therefore he is preparing to reprint them both. I shall await the advice of my friends as to what they think ought to be changed or added.” How far he went with this is not clear. It was planned that the second edition would be printed by Buon, but delays intervened and Buon's death, April 22, 1628, took place probably when about half of the printing had been done. In writing to his brother William July 27, 1628, Grotius said: “My books concerning the Law of War and Peace have been revised by me in many places. Buon has died. His heirs are continually at odds. In the meantime I am considering whether I should send these books to Leyden.” At the end of 1628 he sent his brother a copy in which were noted emendations and additions. He said: ”I send you the books on the Law of War and Peace with not inconsiderable additions. I submit the care of these to you and your friends as, if I judge correctly, it is the most important of my works.”

Codification, so-called, of international law, has a special importance at this time, because it is necessary in order to enlarge the service rendered by the Permanent Court of International Justice as one of a group of related institutions which taken together promise to facilitate the preservation of peace to a degree never before attained.

The prolonged interval during which the United States declined to recognize the government functioning in Mexico, and the still more protracted period during which recognition has been withheld from the de facto government in Russia, have produced some unusually interesting problems with respect to the appropriate judicial attitude toward an unrecognized de facto foreign government. In Mexico the recognized Carranza regime was overthrown by revolution in the spring of 1920, and General Obregon was inaugurated president on the first of December in the same year, yet it was not until August 31, 1923, that the Obregon Government received recognition from the United States. In Russia the recognized Provisional Government of Kerensky fell before the onslaughts of the Bolsheviki in December, 1917, and the Soviet Government established by the Bolsheviki soon acquired virtually undisputed control of most of the old empire, yet the Soviet règime remains unrecognized by the United States even at the present day. During intervals thus abnormally prolonged it has become increasingly difficult for the courts to resolve the cases which arise by applying the simple arbitrary formula that all matters of recognition are for the political departments to decide. More and more it has become evident that cases may arise in which the courts, without deprecating in any way the general principle which the formula is conceived to express, may be justified in taking account in some degree of de facto foreign governments from which recognition has been withheld. It is proposed to consider here only the more recent English and American cases. The cases considered may be grouped under three heads.

It has been customary to take Grotius's book for the starting point of one of the best marked eras in the history of jurisprudence. Any account of the development of theories of justice is likely to begin the modern history of the subject with Grotius, and to put as a classical epoch a period designated as “from Grotius to Kant.” Any account of theories of law is likely to set off a period from the revived study of Roman law in the Italian universities of the twelfth century to Grotius, and another from Grotius to the breaking up of the eighteenth century law-of-nature school. In almost all accounts of the history of the science of law, Grotius stands as marking a turning point.

The third item on the first list of subject-matters taken up for further consideration by the League of Nations Committee of Experts for the Progressive Codification of International Law (Geneva, April 8,1925) reads: "Diplomatic privileges and immunities." It is to be hoped and expected that the committee, in considering a problem as old as international law itself, will not feel satisfied with clinging to conceptions and solutions of by-gone centuries, but will endeavor to give them, within the frame-work of post-war international law, a new stamp.

Grotius was three times in France, each in widely contrasting circumstances. The first visit was in 1598–9, when at the age of fifteen he accompanied Count Justin of Nassau and Barneveld as one of the suite of these envoys from the States General of Holland to Henry IV. The second sojourn from 1621 to 1631, covers the period after his escape from prison at Loevestein, ten years spent, with the exception of the spring and summer of 1623, in Paris. The third from 1634 to 1645, is the period of his Swedish service, when he was Ambassador of Queen Christina to the Court of Louis XIII. Thus of the sixty-two years of Grotius’s life, one third was spent in Paris. It is the second of these French sojourns which now concerns us, for it was during this period that Grotius prepared and published his magnum opus, De Jure Belli ac Pacis.

In the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights signed with Germany on December 8,1923, the United States inaugurated an important development of its commercial policy in conformity with the Tariff Act of 1922, Section 317 of which directs the President, if “the public interest will be served thereby,” to “specify and declare new or additional duties” upon goods imported from countries that discriminate against the commerce of the United States. Pursuant to this provision the American Government undertook the negotiation of agreements with other countries both to eliminate existing discriminations and to obtain assurances that existing equality of treatment would be maintained. Preparation for the new series of commercial arrangements included a careful scrutiny of the most-favored-nation clause as applied to customs duties.

The Immigration Act of 1924 provides that, with certain exceptions, “no alien ineligible to citizenship shall be admitted to the United States,” and carefully defines the term “ineligible to citizenship.”