Hugo Grotius, also known as Huig de Grootor Hugo de Groot, was a Dutch jurist. Along with the earlier works of Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili, Grotius laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law. A teenage intellectual prodigy, for his involvement in the intra-Calvinist disputes of the Dutch Republic, he was imprisoned and then escaped hidden appropriately in a chest of books. He wrote most of his major works in exile in France...
(wikipedia)