The question is a new one, but, though covered by no precedent, I cannot doubt that it is covered by certain well-established principles of international law, which, it is hardly necessary to remark, is no cut-and-dried system but a body of rules founded upon, and moving with, the public opinion of nations.
Holland reflects on the evolving nature of international law, shaped by public opinion rather than rigid rules.
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Since compulsory service has turned standing armies into national armies, war has also become national.
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…
If in our own day a law recognised by the civilised world forbids, in a general way, the soldier to make booty in warfare on land, we have here a great advance in civilisation, and the jurists have had their share in bringing it about.
Laws of war are consequently more than ever important and necessary, since, in the differences of culture and opinion which prevail between individuals and classes, law is almost the only moral power the force of which is acknowledged by…
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