May I add that no serious student of international law is likely either to overrate the authority which it most beneficially exercises, or to conceive of it as an unalterable body of theory.
Holland emphasizes the importance of understanding the authority of international law and its evolving nature, cautioning against rigid interpretations.
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More from Thomas Erskine Holland
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.
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…
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.
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.
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