Anmisties and international Law from an historial perspective: Bartolomé de las Casas v. Hugo Grocio

Abstract

Any amnesty generates a conflict of values that is difficult to solve. What is
the “good” to prioritize in the circumstances that facilitate the proposal of
amnesties? Punishing the most serious crimes or to easy the restoration of peace
at the expense of the obligation of punishment? In Thought history there was a
critical moment in the rationalization of the philosophical-legal ‘validity’ of the
amnesty. Las Casas formulated the first theory about the conditional validity
of amnesties based on his theory of the ‘social pact’. A century later Grotius
responded with the ‘eminent domain’ theory of the sovereign who affirmed
the validity of any amnesty fixed in treaties because of its public utility. The
grotian position prevailed until the end of s. XX.