Reviews of Books
THREE WORKS ON INTERNATIONAL LAW International Law. By John Westlake, K.C., LL.D., Whewell Professor of International Law in the University of Cambridge. Part 1, Peace, 1904; Part 2, War, 1907. Cambridge University Press. Pp. 352, 331; indices. (9s. per v.) The Law of War Between Belligerents; a History and Commentary. By Percy Bordwell, Ph.D., LL.B., Professor of Constitutional Law in the Uni versity of Missouri. Callaghan & Co., Chicago. Pp. xxiv, 351 + index 20. ($3.50 net.) The Elements of International Law, with an Account of its Origin, Sources, and Historical De velopment. By George B. Davis, Judge-AdvocateGeneral, United States Army, and Delegate Pleni potentiary to the Geneva Conference of 1906 and to the Second Peace Conference at The Hague, 1907. 3d revised and enlarged edition, 1908. Harper & Brothers, New York. Pp. xxx, 501 + appendices 139 -f- index 31. ($3.) PROFESSOR WESTLAKE'S short work on international law is intended primar ily to give students and the general public a knowledge of the most important topics. The first volume, dealing with "Peace," was published in 1904, and the second, dealing with "War," in 1907. This scholar's reputa tion rests not simply upon his learning but upon a faculty of independent analysis which elicits warm admiration, and a literary style distinguished for logical cogency and lucidity. The general principles of international law, including the nature of such law, its sanction, greater and lesser territorial rights, leading rules of private international law, the nature of war and its laws, and the duties of neutrals, are subjects upon which Professor Westlake throws much light. The results of the Second Peace Conference, though not incorporated in the treatment of special subjects, are stated in a supplementary chapter, so that the work is to be commended as fairly up-to-date apart from other conspicuous merits. Professor Westlake believes in broadening the field of international arbitration so that gradually differences arising from questions of national policy or honor may gradually come more and more to be included in it, but in spite of this attitude he is somewhat too conservative. The reluctance of nations to submit every possible difference to arbitra tion under all circumstances is due not so much to national pride and independence as
to the uncertainty of international law and the absence of an independent tribunal of acknowledged authority. Nations are not opposed to arbitration because they do not respect the law, but because of uncertainty and disagreement as to what the law is. Gradually the content of substantive international law should be extended by such agreements among the powers as the Declaration of Paris adopted in 1856, and the Declaration of London adopted this year, which bids fair to become an equally important landmark. As the con ventions of this international law spread themselves over a steadily increasing subjectmatter, enforced by the sanction of practical unanimity of opinion, they will provide an international tribunal with definite rules of growing comprehensiveness and utility to apply to the solution of all international disputes. There will ultimately be no occa sion for excepting even the slightest portion of "questions of politics and honor, questions affecting independence in the large and true meaning of the term," to use Professor Westlake's words, from compulsory arbitration. The Anglo-Saxon countries are not the only ones imbued with a profound natural respect for the law. Wu Ting-fang, the Chinese minister, speaking at the Chicago Peace Con gress last May, said : "If general disarmament should be proposed, you will not find China indisposed to accept it. We believe that right makes right, and not might makes right, and I am sanguine enough to believe that the whole world is coming around to adopt that view." Respect for international justice is shared by the whole civilized world, and the problem of the future is rather to define the law than to cultivate respect for it. The reservation in the Anglo-French treaty, whose form has been copied in our own treaties and most others, has proved of incal culable mischief, as Mr. Edwin D. Mead of Boston has pointed out. This treaty excepted from its provisions for arbitration what it chose to call questions of "honor" and "vital interest." It may be that AustriaHungary has "a vital interest" in Bosnia and Herzogovina, that Japan has "a vital inter est" in Korea, and that the United States
