Grotian Traditions and Disability in De iure belli ac pacis

This article undertakes an analysis of the work of Hugo Grotius in De iure belli ac pacis employing a critical, and heretofore unexplored, disability lens. Applying a socio-contextual and rights-based conceptualization of disability, it interrogates how international legal norms have historically excluded or marginalized disabled subjects and provides a rationale for revisiting Grotius’s foundational text through a critical approach to disability. The article proceeds to a close re-reading of De iure belli ac pacis , examining passages on property, legal capacity, truth, the rational-man paradigm, punishment, reparations, and burial to analyze the ableist assumptions embedded in Grotius’s framework for legal subjecthood. The paper tracks the Latin terminology invoked by Grotius to denote persons with disabilities and analyzes their meaning within the Grotian tradition and in terms of modern international law texts. Thereafter, it traces how these rights and assumptions about disability find later expression in contemporary codifications of international law, including, among others, the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Conventions, in terms of subjecthood and legal rights, before contrasting these with the conceptual shift reflected in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, particularly Article 12 on equal recognition before the law. The article concludes by reflecting on the merits of examining the work of Grotius through a critical disability reading and its relevance for rethinking the normative foundations of international legal codification within the context of disability.