International Law as Applied by England in the War

Extract

International law is at once on its trial and in the moulding as it has never been before. It is just a hundred years since the last world-wide war was fought; and to that period one must go back to trace the source of the principal rules and practices of the law of war, and especially of maritime warfare. In the interval, the form of international law and much of its substance have been entirely changed. From indefinite practice and varying usage, imperfectly systematized by text writers, it has passed into the condition of definite rules and uniform law, formulated by international conventions. But most of this definite law has not yet stood the test of practice. So far as the rules of maritime warfare are concerned, it is largely consolidated in conventions made at international conferences during the last seven years. These conventions have indeed been already applied in the war of Italy and the Balkan Powers against Turkey, but they were not searchingly tried in those contests, which were determined by land operations. Strictly, the conventions are not binding in this war, because they are intended to apply only in wars in which all the belligerents are parties, and Servia and Montenegro have not ratified any of the 1907 agreements; but, in fact, the great Powers are professing* to act according to the international legislation.