Education
University of Franeker.
University of Franeker.
He was president of the Hoge Raad van Holland en Zeeland (Supreme Court of the Dutch Republic) 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, it was not him, but the 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.