WESTJARB ON INTERNATIONAL LAW.• THE painful and surprising experiences of
the last few months may incline some of us to think that such a book as this collection of the late Professor• Westlake's writings on public international law must in future have a purely academic interest. If the most solemn treaties are to be regarded, at the convenience of the high contracting parties, as mere "scrape of paper," and if the foundation laid by Grolius and Pufendorf for what seemed a solid construction of laws agreed on by the nations is to be ruthlessly mined whenever it fails to serve as a concrete bed for German howitzers, it would seem that all this mass of learned disquisition has been a mere beating of the air. But that would be to take a too pessimistic view. Half the civilized world is already in arms to assert the validity of the rules which have hitherto dominated the inter- course of civilized nations, and when the Teutonic war-cloud has been swept away by the " Protestant wind" the old legal landmarks will emerge once more from their temporary condition of obscurity. Westlake was one of the most acute and profound thinkers amongst modern international jurists. and Professor Oppenheim—hie successor• is the Whewell Chair at Cambridge—has performed a useful as well as a pious task in editing this complete collection of his scattered writings on his special subject. The first part of this volume is devoted to a second edition of the Chapters on the Principles of listernational Late which Westlake published in 1894 as a precursor to his larger treatise on the laws of war• and peace. The remainder is given to a reprint of Westlake's articles and lectures on particular features of international law. Many of these, whilst they drew their immediate theme from earlier wars, are full of interest at the present moment--e.g., the important paper on "Commercial Blockade" which Westlake published in the Transactions of the Juridical Society in 1862„, when the Federal fleet was closing the harbours of the South against neutral trade; the essay on the question, "Is it Desir- able to Prohibit the Export of Contraband of War P" which was suggested by the Franco-German War of 1870; and the brief but weighty paper on "Belligerent Rights at Sea" which the author contributed in 1909 to Latifi's Effects of War on Property. One of the most interesting passages in the volume is that which calls attention to the German distinction between the ordinary rules of war (Kriegsntanier) and what is exceptionally permitted (Eriegsraison). Westlake quotes the following passage from Professor Lueder, writing in Holtzendorfra great Handbuch des Volkerrechts ;— " That ravage, burning, and devastation, even on a large scale, as of whole neighbourhoods and tracts of country, may be prac- tised where it is not a question of any particular determinate result or strategical operation, but only of more general inensuroa, as in order to make the further advance of the enemy impossible, or even to show him what war is in earnest when he persists in carrying it on without serious hope (frivol) and no compel him to make peace—this cannot be denied in cases of real necessity, as of a well-grounded Kriegsraison. But it is only in such cases that it cannot be denied, and if measures of that kind are taken otherwise than under the most extreme compulsion, they are great and inhuman offences against international law."
To this adumbration of the doctrine of " frightfulness " Westlake adds the remark that " it need not be greatly feared that Professor Lueder's own government will over give effect to his doctrine by ordering the devastation of a whole region as an act.of terrorism." Once again the event has outrun all anticipations.
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