Research interests
Greek and Roman political and legal thought, early modern political thought, natural law theories, Intellectual history of international law, reception of the classics in early modern Europe, Constitutionalism, Republicanism
 

Projects
book project dedicated to Roman constitutional thought and on the ways in which the natural law tradition informed the idea of higher-order norms above mere legislation in the late Roman Republic
 

Selected bibliography concerning Natural law

• Books

Crisis and Constitutionalism: Roman Political Thought from the Fall of the Republic to the Age of Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2016.

Roman Law in the State of Nature. Cambridge University Press 2015.

Alberico Gentili. The Wars of the Romans: A Critical Edition and Translation of De armis Romanis. Edited and with an introduction by Benedict Kingsbury and Benjamin Straumann, trans. David Lupher. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011.

The Roman Foundations of the Law of Nations: Alberico Gentili and the Justice of Empire. Edited and with an Introduction by Benedict Kingsbury and Benjamin Straumann. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2010.

Hugo Grotius und die Antike. Römisches Recht und römische Ethik im frühneuzeitlichen Naturrecht. Studien zur Geschichte des Völkerrechts 14, ed. A. Bogdandy, M. Stolleis. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft 2007.

• Articles

(with Benedict Kingsbury) “Introduction,” in: Alberico Gentili, The Wars of the Romans: A Critical Edition and Translation of De armis Romanis, ed. by B. Kingsbury and B. Straumann, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. x-xxv.

(with Benedict Kingsbury) “Introduction,” in: The Roman Foundations of the Law of Nations: Alberico Gentili and the Justice of Empire, ed. by B. Kingsbury and B. Straumann, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 1-18.

“The Corpus iuris as a Source of Law Between Sovereigns in Alberico Gentili’s Thought,” in: The Roman Foundations of the Law of Nations: Alberico Gentili and the Justice of Empire, ed. by B. Kingsbury and B. Straumann, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 101-123.

(with Benedict Kingsbury) “The State of Nature and Commercial Sociability in Early Modern International Legal Thought,” Grotiana 31 (2010), pp. 1-22.

(co-authored with Lauren Benton) “Acquiring Empire by Law.  From Roman Doctrine to Early Modern European Practice,” Law and History Review 28, 1 (February 2010), pp. 1-38.

“Is Modern Liberty Ancient? Roman Remedies and Natural Rights in Hugo Grotius’ Early Works on Natural Law,” Law and History Review 27, 1 (Spring 2009), pp. 55-85.

“Natural Rights and Roman Law in Hugo Grotius’s Theses LVI, De iure praedae and Defensio capitis quinti maris liberi,” Grotiana New Series 26-28 (2005-2007), pp. 341-365 (=H. W. Blom, ed., Property Piracy and Punishment: Hugo Grotius on War and Booty in De iure praedae: Concepts and Contexts, Leiden: Brill, 2009, pp. 341-365).

“‘Ancient Caesarian Lawyers’ in a State of Nature: Roman Tradition and Natural Rights in Hugo Grotius’ De iure praedae,” Political Theory 34, no. 3 (2006), pp. 328-350.

“The Right to Punish as a Just Cause of War in Hugo Grotius’ Natural Law,” Studies in the History of Ethics 2 (February 2006), pp. 1-20. www.historyofethics.org/022006/022006Straumann.shtml

“Appetitus societatis and oikeiosis: Hugo Grotius’ Ciceronian Argument for Natural Law and Just War,” Grotiana New Series 24/25 (2003/2004), pp. 41-66.