Peace Conferences

Legislation of the Peace Conferences and of the Naval Conference of London

Lassa Oppenheim, in the book entitled The Future of International Law, about Legislation of the Peace Conferences and of the Naval Conference of London, wrote in 1921: 8. With the end of the nineteenth and the first decade of the twentieth century, in which occur the first and second Peace Conferences at The Hague and the Naval Conference of London, the development of international law enters upon a new and pregnant epoch. If hitherto, despite the momentous law-making treaties of the nineteenth century, international law was essentially a book-law, a system erected by greater or smaller authorities on the foundations of state practice and in its details, often uncertain and contested, it is now subjected more and more, and in a wide domain, to the legislating influence of law-making international conventions. To mention only the principal matters: A code has been issued which, full of lacunae as it is, nevertheless encompasses the whole area of land war; it has been laydown that war shall only be begun by a declaration of war; the employment of force for the recovery of contract-debts has been forbidden; the rights and duties of neutrals in land war and naval war, the treatment of enemy merchant vessels at the outbreak of hostilities, and the conditions of the conversion of merchant vessels into men-of-war have been legislatively fixed; rules concerning the laying of submarine mines, concerning bombardment by naval forces in time of war, concerning the application of the principles of the Geneva Convention to naval warfare, concerning certain limitations on the right of prize in naval warfare have been agreed on; many states have concurred in a prohibition of the discharge of explosive missiles from air-ships; and a code of the rules of naval warfare, so far as it touches the trade of neutrals, dealing with the topics of blockade, contraband of war, unneutral service, destruction of neutral prizes, sale of enemy merchantmen to neutrals, enemy property, convoy and so forth, has been agreed on, though still unratified.

The Task of the Future

Lassa Oppenheim, in the book entitled The Future of International Law, about The Task of the Future, wrote in 1921: 12. If in the following pages I undertake the discussion of these three weighty matters, it is entirely foreign to my purpose to peer into the future with the eyes of prophecy or too busy my fancy with building castles in the air. What I propose is only to place in clear light the problems which are now coming into view and to furnish some indications which may contribute to their successful solution. If it is only too happy accident that we owe the assembling of the Peace Conferences, and likewise the issues of the same, we must all the more attempt in the future to assure success by dint of careful deliberation, systematic preparation, and a purposeful consideration of the problems which press for attention. And the science of international law must bethink itself and devote itself, with a more exact method than has hitherto been usual, to the elaboration of the results of past and future Conferences and to the incorporation of them in its system.