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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States differ so widely in offensive power and vulnerability that it would be hardly advisable thus to fetter the liberty of action of a State which considers itself to have been injured.
It has now come to cover, and it is the only term which does cover generically, an indeterminate list of unfriendly acts, such as embargo, pacific blockade, seizure of custom-houses, and even occupation of territory, to which resort is had…
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…
The general recognition of these principles, and of those also which relate to prisoners, would mark a distinct step of progress towards the goal pursued with so honourable a persistency by the Institut de Droit International.
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