Thomas Erskine Holland: “First, what are the rules of international law with reference to the bombardment of open towns from the sea (I leave out…”

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.

The Declaration of London has, most fortunately, never been ratified by the Government of Great Britain.

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…

Its admirers have, however, too long preserved it, perhaps sub spe rati, in a state of suspended animation, using it by way of, as they supposed, a convenient handbook of maritime law for the purposes of the present war, though subject to…