New from Cambridge University Press:
Roman Law in the State of Nature: The Classical Foundations of Hugo Grotius' Natural Law, by Benjamin Straumann (New York University). The Press explains:
Roman Law in the State of Nature offers a new interpretation of the
foundations of Hugo Grotius' natural law theory. Surveying the
significance of texts from classical antiquity, Benjamin Straumann
argues that certain classical texts, namely Roman law and a specifically
Ciceronian brand of Stoicism, were particularly influential for Grotius
in the construction of his theory of natural law. The book asserts that
Grotius, a humanist steeped in Roman law, had many reasons to employ
Roman tradition and explains how Cicero's ethics and Roman law – secular
and offering a doctrine of the freedom of the high seas – were ideally
suited to provide the rules for Grotius' state of nature. This
fascinating new study offers historians, classicists and political
theorists a fresh account of the historical background of the
development of natural rights, natural law and of international legal
norms as they emerged in seventeenth-century early modern Europe.
More information is available
here.
