In 1604, after a Dutch admiral seized the Portuguese vessel Santa Catarina off present-day Singapore, the Dutch East India Company asked Grotius to produce a work, legally defending that action. The groundwork for that defense was that, by claiming a monopoly on the right of trade, Portugal (and Spain) had deprived the Dutch of their natural trading rights. Grotius’s resulting work, De Jure Praedae (“On the Law of Prize and Booty”) is a comprehensive 17th-century work that examines the historical, political, and legal aspects of war and is widely credited as a major foundation of international law because of its argument against the territorial sovereignty of the world’s coastal waters.
De Jure Praedae remained unpublished during his lifetime, except for one chapter—in which Grotius defends free access to the ocean for all nations—which in 1609 appeared under the famous title Mare Liberum (“The Freedom of the Seas”).
In De Jure Praedae, Grotius discusses that the capture of property from an opposing nation is not restricted to issues of legality; he seeks to determine also whether it is honorable or expedient. Grotius sought to ground his defense of the seizure in terms of the natural principles of justice.
Grotius’ natural principles of justice have been our firm’s precept. The seizure of part of your income items by governments through taxation, and our endeavor in retaining or reclaiming your income items against such seizure when it results in over-taxation follow the natural principles of justice. The legal name of our company is ‘De Jure Praedae’, also operating under the name Cross Border Tax Law, defends and secures your right to your ‘Prize and Booty’ and liberates you from international double taxation.