¹ A. D. McNair, “The Legal Meaning of War and the Relation of War to Reprisals,” Transactions of the Grotius Society, 1925; M. O. Hudson, “The Duration of the War between the United States and Germany,” Harvard Law Review, 1926, XXXIX, 1021; Wright, “Changes in the Conception of War,” American Journal of International Law, October, 1924, XVIII, 758—9. Such an expression of intention, though a fact of legal significance, has been treated apart from applicable treaties as the exercise of a power unregulated by law. The peace conference commission on responsibilities seems to have stated the accepted doctrine and practice when it wrote, “a war of aggression may not be considered as an act directly contrary to positive law.” 66th Congress, 1st sess., Senate Document, 106, pp. 329, 336, and Wright, American Journal of International Law, XVIII, 756—757; XIX, 83 et seq.

² David Hunter Miller, The Peace Pact of Paris, N. Y., 1928, p. 126. In a white paper of December 12, 1929, the British Government stated that “the effect of these instruments(the League of Nations Covenant and the Peace Pact) is to deprive nations of the right to employ war as an instrument of national policy and to forbid states which have signed them to give aid and comfort to an offender.… As between members of the League there can be no neutral rights because there can be no neutrals.” This statement referred to the effect of participation in both instruments, but the British Government had made clear its understanding that the Pact went further than the Covenant in forbidding resort to war when it proposed amendment of the Covenant at the 10th Assembly, September, 1929. This initiative resulted in an Assembly resolution declaring it “desirable that the terms of the Covenant of the League should not accord any longer to members of the League a right to have recourse to war in cases in which the right has been renounced by the provisions of the Pact of Paris” and inviting the Council to appoint a committee to frame a report as to amendments in the Covenant “necessary to bring it into harmony with the Pact of Paris.”This committee was appointed and reported on March 5,1930, amendments to the preamble and Articles 12, 13, and 15 of the Covenant. The significance given to the Pact by this committee is illustrated by the amendment to the preamble of the Covenant which proposed to substitute for “by the acceptance of obligations not to resort to war” the phrase “by accepting the obligation not to resort to war.” Lord Cecil stated in 1928 that the Covenant implied that it is no longer “lawful for one nation to make war on another at its own will and pleasure” and commended President Coolidge’s proposal, then pending, that “war as an instrument of national policy should be removed” if it was intended to extend this proposition to the United States. The Way of Peace, New York, 1929, p. 207.

³ Proceedings of the American Society of International Law, 1915, pp. 7-9.

⁴ Miller, op. cit, p. 128, 130, 134; Morton D. Hull, Address in U. S. House of Representatives, January 8, 1930. The juridical difference between a bilateral and a multilateral treaty renouncing war was discussed in the French note of March 30, 1928, The General Pact for the Renunciation of War, Text of the Pact as signed, Notes and other Papers, Washington, 1928, p. 16. Practice suggests that even under customary international law, states have a legal interest entitling them to protest or even intervene to prevent or punish gross violations of the rights of third states. Infra., note 12.

⁵ General Pact, etc., pp. 17-18, 37. Miller writes that the Pact means “that the sanctions of Article 16 of the Covenant have behind them the moral acquiescence of the United States” (op. cit., p. 132) and Borchard insists that by it “we recognize the legality of League wars and Locarno wars.” (The Multilateral Pact for the Renunciation of War, Address at Williamstown, August 22, 1928.)

⁶ Address of Sir Austen Chamberlain, League of Nations Council, March 12, 1925,Monthly Summary, V, 86—87. See also statement by Sir Austen reprinted in New York Times, March 23,1930, p. 6; Report of the Secretary General on the Legal Position arising from the Enforcement in time of Peace of the Measures of Economic Pressure indicated in Article 1(5 of the Covenant, May 17, 1927, L. of N. Publications, Legal, 1927, V, 14, p. 83, reprinted in International Conciliation, September, 1928, No. 242, pp. 430-431; Malbone W. Graham, “The Effect of the League of Nations Covenant on the Theory and Practice of Neutrality,” California Law Review, July, 1927, XV, 359; George Cohn, Neutralité et la Societé des Nations, in Munch, Les Origines et L’Oeuvre de la Societé des Nations, II, 155; Wright, “The Future of Neutrality,” International Conciliation, September, 1928, No. 242, p. 367.

⁷ See Report of Secretary General, op. ctt., p. 88; International Conciliation, No. 242,p. 371; Miller, op. cit., p. 132.

⁸ On the Capper and other resolutions see Chamberlain, International Conciliation,June, 1929, No. 251, p. 290, and on “partiality,” see Wright, “The Future of Neutrality,” op. cit, pp. 367-372.

⁹ It is in this sense that the possibility of neutrality of the British dominions in wars to which Great Britain is a party has been discussed. See C. D. Allin, “Proposals for the Neutrality of the British Colonies,” Political Science Quarterly, September, 1922, XXXVII, 415-439; “Colonial Participation in Imperial Wars—Australasia,” Bulletin of the Departments of History and Political and Economic Science in Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, August, 1926, No. 52. Noel Baker thinks the Dominions might be “passively belligerent” though they could not be “legally neutral” if Great Britain were at war, The Present Juridical Status of the British Dominions in International Law, London, 1929, pp. 331-341. “Legal neutrality” is distinguished from “historic,” “partial,” “imperfect,” “qualified,” “neutrality” or “partiality” in Wilson and Tucker, International Law, 8th ed., 1922, p. 299; Naval War College, International Law Documents, 1917, 224; Message du Conseil federal a l’assemblie federate concernant la question de I’accession de la Suisse á la Societé des Nations, August 4,1919, pp. 43, 66, 234-236; Cohn, op. cit. p. 184; Wright, “The Future of Neutrality,” pp. 366, 369; Graham, op. cit., p. 372.

¹⁰ Higgins, Cambridge History of the British Empire, I, 553; Hall, International Law, 8th ed., p. 93; Oppenheim, International Law, 3rd ed., p. 400; Wilson and Tucker, International Law, 8th ed., p. 299; Wright, “The Future of Neutrality,” pp. 353, 360, 373 et seq.

¹¹ Plutarch, Solon, sec. 18, quoted in Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Paris, I, c. 5, sec. 2; .Ibid., HI, c. 17; Walker, History of the Law of Nations, I, 136; Holland, Studies in International Law, 40-58; Higgins, in Cambridge History of the British Empire, I, 189; Wright, “Effects of the League of Nations Covenant,“ American Political Science Review, November, 1919; XIII, 557; “The Future of Neutrality,” 360-367.

¹² Text writers and the practice of intervention in the presence of gross inhumanity or danger to general political stability, as by the “Holy Alliance“ and the “concert of Europe” suggests that third states under general international law might claim a legal interest in case certain gross violations of international law were immediately pending or consummated. See Wright, “The Outlawry of War,” American Journal of International Law, January, 1925, XIX, 93-93, especially footnotes, 72, 75, 82.

¹³ The League in practice has emphasized the preventive measures in Article 11 rather than the punitive measures in Article 16. The former require the Council immediately to recall to both belligerents their obligations under the Covenant, to insist that both stop firing, and to supervise the retirement of the forces of both behind established boundaries. This procedure avoids any necessity of distinguishing between the aggressor and the victin. until the immediate danger of war is averted. This question may be later deliberated upoi. in claims for damages. See T. P. Conwell-Evans, The League Council in Action, Oxford. 1S29, Part II.

¹⁴ The bases for developing such a law have been investigated by Jessup, American Neutrality and International Police, World Peace Foundation, 1928, XI, No. 3; Chamberlain, “The Embargo Resolutions and Neutrality,” International Conciliation, June, 1929, No. 251; Miller, The Pact of Paris, New York, 1928, chap. 19; Shotwell, War as an Instrument of National Policy, New York, 1929, chap. 21; Wright, “The Future of Neutrality,” International Conciliation, September, 1928, No. 242, and others.