Thomas Erskine Holland: “Every law presupposes an authority to superintend and direct its execution, and international conventions are supported…”

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.

Only compare the horrors of the Thirty Years' War with the struggles of modern times.

The progress of civilisation should have the effect of alleviating as much as possible the calamities of war.

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…