My position is that they are so far stigmatised as barbarous by public opinion that their perpetration in civilised warfare may be regarded as improbable; in other words, that they are forbidden by international law.
Holland asserts that certain barbarous acts are condemned by public opinion and international law, making them unlikely in civilized warfare.
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Without war the world would stagnate, and lose itself in materialism.
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…
The justification of a resort either to reprisals or to war, in any given case, depends, of course, upon the nature of the acts complained of, and upon the validity of the excuses put forward either for the acts themselves, or for failure…
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