A New Edition of the Classic Kelsey Translation

In 1906 the Carnegie Institution of Washington agreed to sponsor and finance a project to republish the Classics of International Law with new translations, annotations, and introductions. Pride of place was given to Grotius’s De Jure Belli ac Pacis. When health reasons compelled the replacement of the original translator, the project was handed to Francis W. Kelsey [1858-1927], a classicist and archaeologist at the University of Michigan, who was assisted by a team of colleagues in Ann Arbor and Washington, DC.

The result was the present volume: a new translation based on the last edition by the author (1646). Kelsey and his team painstakingly and thoroughly compared other language texts and translations, verified all of the footnotes and quotations and confirmed the use of legal terminology with specialists in international law. In all, no effort was spared to create a scholarly translation with lucid English prose. This facsimile reprint is accompanied by a new introduction that explores the previously unknown history of Kelsey’s translation.

William E. Butler is the John Edward Fowler Distinguished Professor of Law, Dickinson Law, Pennsylvania State University; Emeritus Professor of Comparative Law in the University of London (University College London); Foreign Member, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine; Foreign Member, Russian Academy of Natural Sciences; Associate, International Academy of Comparative Law.

[52] xlvi, 946 pp.