Abstract
In January 1672, nearly twenty years after the Dutch East India Company had established an outpost at Africa's Cape of Good Hope, a case was adjudicated by the rudimentary local judicial body, the Council of Justice, the significance of which was evident even then. The facts were simple. Members of the indigenous population were accused of having robbed and assaulted European servants of the Company. The legal question before the Council, however, was an intricate one. Did it have jurisdiction over the accused and could it apply to them the same law as would have been applied if the roles of perpetrator and victim had been reversed? The prosecutor successfully urged an affirmative answer. Citingthe Roman Emperor Justinian's Corpus Iuris Civilis, he argued that: “Since the law of nature is implanted in all reasonable creatures, the Hottentots cannot be excluded therefrom. They are consequently subject to the law of nature and therefore also the law of nations …”
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