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Cornelis van Bijnkershoek (a.k.a. ''Cornelius van Bynkershoek'') (29 May 1673, in
Middelburg Middelburg may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Europe * Middelburg, Zeeland, the capital city of the province of Zeeland, southwestern Netherlands ** Roman Catholic Diocese of Middelburg, a former Catholic diocese with its see in the Zeeland ...
– 16 April 1743, in
The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...
) was a Dutch jurist and legal theorist who was educated at the
University of Franeker The University of Franeker (1585–1811) was a university in Franeker, Friesland, the Netherlands. It was the second oldest university of the Netherlands, founded shortly after Leiden University. History Also known as ''Academia Franekerensis'' ...
. After two years study, he began to apply himself to jurisprudence. He resolved to reform the common law of his country, and took as the basis of a new system the principles of
Roman law Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the '' Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Ju ...
. He later contributed to the development of
international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
in works like ''De Dominio Maris Dissertatio'' (1702); ''Observationes Juris Romani'' (1710), of which a continuation in four books appeared in 1733; the treatise ''De foro legatorum'' (1721); and the ''Quaestiones Juris Publici'' (1737).Online copy
Complete editions of his works were published after his death; one in folio at Geneva in 1761, and another in two volumes folio at Leiden in 1766. He was president of the Hoge Raad van Holland en Zeeland (Supreme Court of the
Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...
) from 1724 to 1743. Van Bynkershoek was especially important in the development of the Law of the Sea. In particular he furthered Hugo Grotius' idea that coastal states have a right to the adjoining waters the width of which had to correspond to the capacity of exercising an effective control over it, that he expressed in his famous book De Iure Belli Ac Pacis. Bynkershoek translated Grotius idea into practical terms, by arguing that such effective control has to correspond to the range of the coastal state's weapons: "terrae potestas finitur ubi finitur armorum vis". However, instead of him, it was Italian Ferdinand Galiami who calculated the range of the most advanced cannon at the time to three nautical miles or a league. This idea became common practice and was known as the "cannon shot rule" and was regarded as the internationally accepted measure of the width of the territorial sea.


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* 1673 births 1743 deaths 17th-century Dutch jurists 17th-century Dutch political philosophers 18th-century Dutch jurists 18th-century Dutch political philosophers Dutch legal scholars People from Middelburg, Zeeland University of Franeker alumni {{netherlands-law-bio-stub