Hugo Grotius

Open Oceans or Shuttered Seas?

As China seeks to impose its closed vision of the oceanic commons, the US must counter this approach and recommit to its maritime heritage.

Natural Law and International Justice: A Moral Case for Coercive Intervention

When do nations have not only the option of but the responsibility to intervene in the affairs of other nations?

Seventy-five Years of The Best Years of Our Lives: A Retrospective on War and Peace
Seventy-five Years of The Best Years of Our Lives: A Retrospective on War and Peace

Seventy-five years ago, the Samuel Goldwyn masterpiece “The Best Years of Our Lives” premiered to universal critical and popular acclaim. Reviewing the film now, two overarching contrasts between past and present are clear.

Keys to the Kingdom, Light to the World: A Review of Barbato, Joustra, and Hoover’s Modern Papal Diplomacy and Social Teaching in World Affairs

The overall intent of Modern Papal Diplomacy and Social Teaching in World Affairs is to continue the rediscovery of theology’s influence on politics with respect to the recent papacy.

A Basis of Christian Cooperation: Recovering Natural Law
A Basis of Christian Cooperation: Recovering Natural Law

This article about the history and future of Christian moral truth was originally published in Christianity and Crisis on December 28th, 1942. Contributor Barbara Ward details the history of Christian moral law, originally developed in the philosophical depths of the natural law tradition, all the way to its fracturing, resulting in the contemporaneous “will to power” found in Nazism. She councils Christians globally to recover this tradition and bring it to bear on the world in her day.

Sex, Lies, and Spies
Sex, Lies, and Spies

We can make a clear and convincing case that the Christian tradition may support the idea that lies told for the public good are justifiable. When spies tell such lies in the line of duty, their deceptions fall into that category and, so, are justifiable. Can the same be said for sex in the line of duty?

The Failure to Protect: Syria, the Christian Church, and Humanitarian Intervention
The Failure to Protect: Syria, the Christian Church, and Humanitarian Intervention

The Responsibility to Protect owes its greatest debt to a religiously rooted approach to achieving peace with justice, the Christian just war tradition.