The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (114 page)

 
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Site of US airbase in Berkshire which became the focus of the feminist peace movement in the 1980s. The Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp was formed in 1981, protesting about the presence of American cruise missiles in Britain.

 
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Greenpeace was set up in 1971 by a small group of North American activists, who sailed their small boat into the US atomic test zone near Alaska. It now has 4.5 million supporters in 158 countries and international offices in 31 countries, making it the world's largest international environmental campaigns organization. It is most famous for targeted and highly public direct action by small groups of individuals, but also engages in research and lobbying activities. Issues it campaigns on include nuclear weapons testing, toxic waste dumping, biodiversity, and whaling. Greenpeace is often in conflict with governments, most notably when the first
Rainbow Warrior
was bombed and sunk in New Zealand by French secret service agents.
PI 

 
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(1583–1645)
Grotius was born in Delft, South Holland. At the age of 16 he acquired a doctorate of laws and at 24 was advocate-general for Holland and Zeeland and for the rest of his life pursued a career as a diplomat.
Grotius was a legal rather than a strictly political theorist, though, as a pioneer in international law, his writings have important political implications. His first book,
On the Law of Booty
(1604) concerned the claim of a Portuguese ship seized by the Dutch East India Company, but the principle of his solution—that the ocean is free to all nations—had wider implications. These were examined in his great work,
On the Law of War and Peace
(1625). This work is in the Aristotelian tradition. Grotius bases international law (
ius gentium
) on natural law, which, for him, embraces civil and even divine law. Civil, because, for him, each society naturally chooses its own form of government, but all nations are subject to the same basic or natural law (
ius naturale
). Divine, because natural law is founded in divine wisdom: they cannot be in conflict ( See also
Suarez
). All this, in Grotius's view, is a product of ratiocination. He believed that the conflict between Protestants and Catholics could be solved by rational discussion.
Grotius also dabbled in theology and poetry. He regarded Christ's death, not as expiation for sin, but as retributive or exemplary justice, demonstrating God's hatred of moral (as distinct from physical) evil. This theme, expressed in his poem
Adamus Exsul
, is said to have influenced Milton in writing
Paradise Lost
.
CB 

 
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A bay in southwestern Cuba, in which US Marines landed in 1898, during the Cuban War of Independence. With independence from Spain achieved, Cuba was forced to accept the Platt Amendment in 1901, which gave the US a permanent right to intervene in its home affairs. In 1903, the Cuban government had little alternative but to accept the presence of the US navy in Guantanamo, and the two sides agreed on a lease of the base. In 1934, the Platt Amendment was repealed, but in return the status of Guantanamo Bay was confirmed until both treaty signatories agreed on a change of status. Since Castro was never prepared to risk his revolution by giving the US a pretext for open warfare, the US presence in Guantanamo persisted even after Castro's revolution in 1960. Since then, Guantanamo Bay became a colony of about 6,000 people, sustained by heavy subsidies from the US government, which used the area as a front-line training ground for its Marines. In 2002, it became important as a place of imprisonment for al-Qaeda terrorists. Since the Bay was not formally part of the USA, this gave the administration of George W. Bush full jurisdiction over their fate, without protection by the Bill of Rights enforced by the US Supreme Court.

 
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