This is what makes it possible to proclaim an international law of war, approved by the legal conscience of all civilised peoples; and when a principle is thus generally accepted, it exerts an authority over minds and manners which curbs sensual appetites and triumphs over barbarism.
Holland asserts that widely accepted principles of international law can exert significant influence over societies.
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More from Thomas Erskine Holland
Never will an article learnt by rote persuade soldiers to see a regular enemy (sections 2-4) in the unorganised population which takes up arms 'spontaneously' (so of its own motion) and puts them in danger of their life at every moment of…
Every law presupposes an authority to superintend and direct its execution, and international conventions are supported by no such authority.
The need for pressure of any kind is, of course, regrettable, the only question being whether such limited pressure be not more humane to the nation which experiences it, and less distasteful to the nation which exercises it, than is the…
To open and facilitate the settlement of trifling disputes between nations by judicial methods, war being unquestionably a method out of all proportion in such cases.
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