Beyond this, international law speaks at present with an uncertain voice, leaving to each Power to resort to such measures in detail as may be necessary to ensure the due performance of a duty which, as expressed in general terms, is universally recognised.
Holland emphasizes the ambiguity in international law regarding neutral duties during conflicts.
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More from Thomas Erskine Holland
It is surely notorious that the delegates of a Power, by agreeing to the draft of a treaty, give to it no international validity, which results only when the treaty has been ratified by their Government.
It would be calamitous should a practice be introduced of attempting to cure the imperfect expression of a treaty by tacking on to it an equally authoritative reasoned commentary, likely, as in the present case, to be enormously longer…
This power has been so freely exercised, and large portions of the Declaration, not thereby affected, have proved to be so inapplicable to modern conditions, as disclosed by the war, that the document, so far from providing reliable…
I would submit that such a Report as that which accompanies the Declaration of London has no claim to the sort of interpretative authority which has been attributed to it; nor is it desirable that the requisite steps should be taken for…
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