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 than the test to which it relates.
Holland warns against the dangers of adding commentary to treaties, which could complicate their interpretation.
Share
More from Thomas Erskine Holland
Only compare the horrors of the Thirty Years' War with the struggles of modern times.
We see a general legal persuasion ever in process of more and more distinct formation uniting all civilised peoples.
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.
Other voices in this conversation
