International law here, as always, deals with relations between States, and has nothing to do with the contraband trader, except in so far as it deprives him of the protection of his Government.
Holland clarifies that international law pertains to state relations and not to individual contraband traders.
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More from Thomas Erskine Holland
To put an end to this confusion, I venture to suggest that, in concert with our Allies, the Declaration should be finally consigned to oblivion.
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…
Already in the first weeks of the war England had renounced the Declaration of London, the contents of which her own delegates had recognised as binding in international law.
The fact is that the vitally important questions of theory and practice raised by the Convention and the Declaration need calmer and better instructed discussion than they have yet received.
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