1 Pufendorf, De Jure Naturae et Gentium Libri Octo (1688), Bk. VIII, Ch. VI, 2. (English translation in Carnegie Endowment edition, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1934.)

2 Pt. I, Ch. 14, II; similarly in his Leviathan, Ch. 13. See also Plato, The Laws, Bk. I, 2; Pierino Belli, De re Militari et Bello Tractatus (1563), Pt. I, Ch. I, I; Spinoza, Tractatus Politicus (1677), Ch. 2, § 14 and Ch. 3, § 13. This conception lies at the bottom of the distinction in Muslim law between the “Abode of Islam” and the “Abode of War.” Cf. M. Khadduri, The Law of War and Peace in Islam (London, 1940), pp. 20 and 46.

3 Loc. cit.; see also ibid., Bk. II, Ch. II, 7 or his De Officio Hominis et Civis juxta Legem Naturalem Libri Duo (1673), Bk. II, Ch. XVI, I (Carnegie Endowment translation, New York, 1927), and the dictum in Miller v. The Resolution, U. S. Court of Appeals (1781), 2 Dallas 1: “As the state of nature was a state of peace, and not a state of war, the natural state of nations is a state of peace and society.”

4 Cf. F. Meinecke’s masterly description of the political background of this period in Die Idee der Staatsraison in der neueren Geschichle (Munich, 1929), p. 514 et seq.

5 Bk. I, Ch. I, I. (English translation in Carnegie Endowment edition, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1925.)

6 De Jure Belli Libri Tres (1589), Bk. I, Ch. II (Carnegie Endowment translation, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1933.)

7 In his essay Of the Greatnesse of Kingdomes and Estates (1597), XXIX.

8 De Indis et de Jure Belli Relectiones (1541), Relectio Secunda, No. 7 (Carnegie Institution translation, Washington, 1917). See also Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pads Libri Tres, Bk. III, Ch. 3, II.

9 Cf. Sir Travers Twiss, The Law of Nations (Oxford, 1875), Vol. II, p. 65.

10 Victoria, quoting from Terence, loc. cit., No. 21.

11 Useful surveys of this doctrine are contained in R. Regout, La Doctrine de la Guerre Juste (Paris, 1935), and W. Ballis, The Legal Position of War (The Hague, 1937). See also von Elbe, J., “The Evolution of the Concept of the Just War in International Law,” This Journal, Vol. 33 (1939), p. 665 Google Scholar et seq.

12 T. E. Holland, Studies in International Law (Oxford, 1898), p. 58.

13 C. Phillipson, introduction to Gentili’s De Jure Belli Libri Tres (Carnegie Endowment translation, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1933), Vol. II, p. 33a.

14 Gentili, ibid., Bk. I, Ch. XIV.

15 Ibid., Chs. XV, XVII, and XVIII.

16 Ibid., Bk. III, Ch. XVIII.

17 Ibid., Bk. I, Ch. VI.

18 Gentili, ibid., Bk. I, Ch. VI.

19 Loc. cit., No. 32.

20 Grotius, loc. cit., Bk. II, Ch. 17, S. 19.

21 Thoughts of a Statesman, Ch. II.

22 E.g., Victoria, loc. cit., introd. Compare with this approach Erasmus’ Querela Pacis (1517).

23 For a more detailed analysis, see the present writer’s Power Politics (London, 1941), p. 153 et seq.

24 Vol. III (London, 1885), p. I. See also C. Phillipson, The Effect of War on Contracts (London, 1909), p. 25; Anonymous, , “The League of Nations and the Laws of War,” B.Y.I.L., 1920–1921, p. 109 Google Scholar et seq.; A. P. Higgins, “The Law of Peace,” ibid., 1923–1924, p. 153 et seq.; Sir John Fischer Williams, Chapters on Current International Law and the League of Nations (London, 1929), p. 73 et seq.

25 For a more detailed discussion of the functions of war in modern international society, see the writer’s Power Politics, supra, p. 132 el seq.

26 Cf. Wright, Q., “Changes in the Conception of War,” This Journal, Vol. 18 (1924), p. 756 Google Scholar.

27 See G. J. Webber, Effect of War on Contract (London, 1940), p. I.

28 The Permanent Court of Arbitration in the case of the Russian Indemnities, XI, p. 82.

29 Wright, loc. cit.

30 For a more detailed examination of these and other theories on war, see the writer’s Power Politics, supra, p. 129 et seq.

31 Cf. Q. Wright, The Causes of War and the Conditions of Peace (London, 1935), p. 21 et seq.

32 Gentili, loc. cit., Bk. III, Ch. XXIV.

33 Op. cit., Bk. III, Ch. XXI, I, I, and Cicero, Philippica, VII.

34 Op. cit, Bk. I, Ch. I, 8.

35 Cf. McNair, A. D., “The Legal Meaning of War,” Grotius Society, XI, p. 33 Google Scholar, and Brierly, J. L., “International Law and Resort to Armed Force,” Cambridge Law Journal, 1932, p. 314 Google Scholar.

36 On the attitude of American courts which have a similar tendency to leave such “political” decisions in the hands of the Executive, see Q. Wright, The Control of American Foreign Relations (New York, 1922), p. 172 et seq., and Ronan, W. J., “English and American Courts and the Definition of War,” This Journal, Vol. 31 (1937), p. 650 Google Scholar.

37 A. C. (1902) 484, at p. 497.

38 Ibid., pp. 497–8.

39 F. E. Smith, International Law (London, 1903), p. 90.

40 Cf. T. E. Holland, op. cit., p. 130 et seq.; A. E. Hogan, Pacific Blockade (Oxford, 1908); J. Westlake, Collected Papers (Cambridge, 1914), p. 572 et seq.; E. C. Stowell, Intervention in International Law (Washington, 1921); C. C. Hyde, International Law (Boston, 1922), Vol. II, p. 192; Winfield, P. H., “The History of Intervention in International Law,” B.Y.I.L., 1922–1923, p. 130 Google Scholar et seq.; “The Grounds of Intervention in International Law,” ibid., 1924, p. 149 et seq.; Maccoby, S., “Reprisals as a Measure of Redress Short of War,” Cambridge Law Journal, 1926, p. 60 Google Scholar et seq.; A. E. Hindmarsh, Force in Peace, Cambridge (Mass.), 1933; Rumpf, H., “Is a Definition of War Necessary?”, Boston University Law Review, 1938, p. 705 Google Scholar et seq.

41 Sir Robert Phillimore, op til., Vol. III , p. 16.

42 A. G. Heffter, Le Droit International de I’Europe (edited by F. H. Geffken), Paris, 1883, p. 246; Th. Baty, The Canons of International Law (London, 1930), p. 110; Parry, C., “Some Nineteenth Century Pacific Blockades,” Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, 1938, p. 672 Google Scholar et seq.

43 See on the blockade by France of Formosa (1884), Hall-Higgins, A Treatise on International Law (London, 1924), pp. 439–440; on the British-German-Italian blockade of Venezuela, Basdevant, J., L’Action Coercitive Anglo-Germano-Italienne contre le Vénézuéla , R.G.D.I.P., 1904, p. 422 Google Scholar et seq., and Westlake, op. cit., p. 585.

44 The inability of modern doctrine, based on the assumption of the alternative of peace and war, adequately to deal with the use of force in “peace,” may be illustrated by a few examples: H. Wheaton, History of the Law of Nations in Europe and America (New York, 1845), p. 759: “It remains . . . an undefined and undefinable exception to the mutual independence of nations”; Hall-Higgins, op. cit., p. 434: “Reprisals are acts of war in fact, though not in intention”; Borchard, E. M., “‘War’ and ‘Peace,’” This Journal, Vol. 27 (1933), pp. 115–116 Google Scholar: “ It must be conceded that de facto war, with or without a full state of war, is one of the commonest of phenomena, and . . . it cannot be reconciled with a state of peace”; Oppenheim’s International Law (edited by H. Lauterpacht, London, 1940), Vol. II, p. 107: “Compulsive means are in theory and practice considered peaceable, although not amicable means of settling international differences”; H. Lauterpacht, “Règles Générales du Droit de la Paix,” Hague Recueil, T. 62 (1937), p. 191: “Le droit international concu comme un ensemble de règles règlant la paix (ou, ce qui revient au même, interdisant la violence).” See, however, Keeton, G. W., “Legal Guarantees of Peace,” Czechoslovak Y.B.I.L., London, 1942, p. 41 Google Scholar.

46 Cf. the writer’s Power Politics, supra, Pt. I.

46 See, on the different forms of power, B. Russell, Power (London, 1938).

47 See on the unlimited right to war in modern international law, Hall-Higgins, op. cit., p. 82, and on the attitude of British practice, the note of Mr. Christie to the Marquis of Abrantes (Dec. 30, 1862) and the dispatch of Earl Russell to Mr. Lettsom (Dec. 24, 1864), Fontes Juris Gentium, Series B, Sectio I, Tomus I, Part II (1856–71), Nos. 2398 and 2375. The measures applied by France and Great Britain against Holland in order to achieve the separation of Belgium in 1832–33 (Hogan, op cit., p. 80 et seq.) and similar measures of “international police” (Hall-Higgins, op. cit., p. 441) show that State practice interprets liberally the conditions assumed by doctrine to limit the use of force in “peace.” As Brierly observes, “all these writers seem conscious of a certain unreality in the profession of the law to regulate reprisals” (loc. cit., p. 309). See also C. Eagleton, “The Form and Function of the Declaration of War,” this JOURNAL, Vol. 32 (1938), p. 19 et seq.

48 A. Rougier, Les Guerres Civiles et le Droit des Gens (Paris, 1903); resolution adopted by the Institut de Droit International, 1900, in Carnegie Endowment, Resolutions of the Institute of International Law (New York, 1916), pp. 157–159; H. A. Smith, Great Britain and the Law of Nations (London, 1932), Vol. I, p. 261 et seq., particularly also the opinion quoted there of Dr. Lushington (May 29,1823, p. 293): “ To apply the strict principles of the Law of Nations to a state of things so anomalous, would, I apprehend, tend only to mislead the parties interested, for these questions are always mixed up with political considerations, and the practise will in some degree differ from the theory. Of this we have many instances in regard to Spanish South America, the British Government having endeavoured to carry on its intercourse on equitable and beneficial principles, rather than adhere to the letter of the Law of Nations.” See also Earl Russell’s dispatch to Lord Lyons (Washington), Oct. 3, 1861, Forties Juris Gentium, loc. cit., No. 2431. As Smith himself holds, “the true doctrine is that the recognition of the insurgent government is the necessary and logical consequence of recognizing the fact of war.” (“Some Problems of the Spanish Civil War,” B.Y.I.L., 1937, p. 18.)

49 See Wilson, G. G., “Insurgency and International Maritime Law,” This Journal, Vol. 1 (1907), p. 46 Google Scholar et seq.; Hall-Higgins, op. cit., pp. 46–47; McNair, A. D., “The Law relating to the Civil War in Spain,” L.Q.R., 1937, p. 484 Google Scholar et seq. (particularly on the quasi-blockades established by insurgents); Lauterpacht, H., “Recognition of Insurgents as a de facto Government, M.L.R., 1939, p. 4 Google Scholar.

50 Cf. Hall-Higgins, op. cit, pp. 36–37.

51 Op. cit, Bk. I, Ch. I, S. 2, I: “Status per vim certantium qua tales sunt.” See J. Westlake, International Law, Vol. II (Cambridge, 1913), p. I, and A. D. McNair, loc. cit., p. 33.

52 Westlake, ibid., p. 8. This form of declaration of war was used for the last time in 1657 when Sweden declared war against Denmark by a herald-at-arms sent to Copenhagen (Sir Travers Twiss, op. cit., p. 62).

53 T. J. Lawrence, War and Neutrality in the Far East (London, 1904), p. 26 et seq.

54 Hall-Higgins, op. cit., p. 941.

55 Cf. Westlake, op. cit., p. 1; Oppenheim’s International Law, ibid., p. 168; and Eagleton, C., “The Attempt to Define War,” International Conciliation, 1933, p. 259 Google Scholar et seq.

56 Cf. Westlake, ibid., pp. 1–2; McNair, loc. cit., p. 45; Oppenheim, ibid., p. 241. See also the pertinent comment of Sir Wilfrid Greene, M.R., in Kawasaki Kisen Kabushiki of Kobe v. Bantham S. S. Co., Ltd.: “ What animus belligerendi meant was again a matter of obscurity,

and to define war by relation to it came near to define war by itself” (A.C. 55, T.L.R. 503, at p. 505) and the observations of SirWilliams, John Fischer, “The Covenant of the League of Nations and War,” Cambridge Law Journal, 1933, p. 8 Google Scholar et seq.

57 Thus, States may slip as informally from war into peace as from peace into war. Cf. Hyde, op. cit., pp. 820–821; Transill, C. C., “ Termination of War by Mere Cessation of Hostilities,” L.Q.R., 1922, p. 26 Google Scholar et seq.; W. E. Beckett, “The Right to Trade and the Right to Sue,” ibid., 1923, p. 89 et seq

58 Carnegie Endowment, The Proceedings of the Hague Peace Conferences (New York, 1921), Vol. Ill, p. 169. In the view of the German Supreme Court, “although the Chinese expedition of 1900–1901 did not conduct a war in the sense of international law, and no declaration of war was made on China, it found itself nevertheless in a situation similar to that of war” (R.G.Z. 58, p. 328).

59 Stowell, E. C., “Convention Relative to the Opening of Hostilities,” This Journal, Vol. 2 (1908), p. 55 Google Scholar.

60 See Westlake, Collected Papers, supra, pp. 591–592.

61 Cf. Eagleton, “Attempt to Define War,” loc. cit., pp. 250, 259 et seq.

62 D. H. Miller, The Drafting of the Covenant (New York, 1928), Vol. I, pp. 59, 213, 214 and 222, and Vol. II, pp. 12, 81–84, 101, 138 and 149.

63 See McNair, loc. cit., pp. 226–227, and the writer’s Power Politics, supra.

64 Cf. R. M. Cooper, American Consultation in World Affairs, New York, 1934, p. 114 et seg.

65 Lytton Report, p. 138.

66 Cf. Brierly, J. L., “Sanctions,” Grotius Society, XVII, p. 79 Google Scholar: “It seems clear that the action of Japan has not constituted a ‘resort to war’ in breach of her obligations under the Covenant”; Wright, Q., “When Does War Exist?”, This Journal, Vol. 26 (1932), p. 367 Google Scholar; H. Lauterpacht, ‘“Resort to War’ and the Interpretation of the Covenant during the Manchurian Dispute,” ibid., Vol. 28 (1934), pp. 48 and 52. See, however, Eagleton, ibid., p. 250.

67 Cf. Borchard, loc. cit., p. 116, and Eagleton, ibid., p. 284 et seq.

68 Text of the note of June 23, 1928, in this Journal, Supplement, Vol. 22 (1928), p. 109.

69 Part VIII, Sec. I, Annex II, § 18, this Journal, Supplement, Vol. 13 (1919), p. 264.

70 Cf. A. D. McNair, B.Y.I.L., 1924, p. 182, and on “The Legality of the Occupation of the Ruhr,” ibid., p. 17 et seq.

71 Exchange of declarations between the Government of Germany and the Belgian, British, French, Italian and Japanese Governments of Jan. 20, 1930 (British and Foreign State Papers, 1930, Pt. I, p. 42); this Journal, Supp., Vol. 24 (1930), p. 271.

72 Preamble of the Nyon Agreement regarding submarines, par. 2: “Whereas these attacks are violations of the rules of international law referred to in Part IV of the Treaty of London of April 22, 1930, with regard to the sinking of merchant ships and constitute acts contrary to the most elementary dictates of humanity which should justly be treated as acts of piracy.” (B.Y.I.L., 1938, p. 205). See also the additional agreement concerning surface vessels and aircraft (ibid., p. 206). The agreements also are printed in this Journal, Supp., Vol. 31 (1937), pp. 179, 182.

73 For a more detailed discussion, see the writer’s Power Politics, supra, p. 33 et seq., and “The Three Types of Law,” Ethics, 1943, p. 89 et seq.

74 This latter type of law has been well described by G. Niemeyer, Law Without Force (Princeton, 1941).

75 For a more detailed discussion, see the writer’s Power Politics, supra, p. 138 et seq.