Good Offices and Mediation.
§ 245. Complaints lodged with neutral States may have the effect of one or more of the latter lending their offices or their mediation to the belligerents for the purpose of settling such conflict as arose out of the alleged illegitimate acts or omissions of warfare, thus preventing them from resorting to reprisals. Such good offices and mediation do not differ from those which settle a difference between States in time of peace and which have been discussed above in §§ 7-11; they are friendly acts in contradistinction to intervention, which is dictatorial interference for the purpose of making the respective belligerents comply with the laws of war.
Intervention on the part of Neutrals.
§ 246. There can be no doubt that neutral States, whether a complaint has been lodged with them or not, may either singly, or jointly and collectively, exercise intervention in cases of illegitimate acts or omissions of warfare being committed by belligerent Governments, or committed by members of belligerent forces if the Governments concerned do not punish the offenders. It will be remembered that it has been stated above in [Vol. I. § 135, No. 4], that other States have a right to intervene in case a State violates in time of peace or war those principles of the Law of Nations which are universally recognised. There is not the slightest doubt that such principles of International Law are endangered in case a belligerent Government commits acts of illegitimate warfare or does not punish the offenders in case such acts are committed by members of its armed forces. But apart from this, the Hague Regulations make illegitimate acts of warfare on land now appear as by right the affair of all signatory States to the Convention, and therefore, in case of war between signatory States, the neutral signatory States certainly would have a right of intervention if acts of warfare were committed which are illegitimate according to the Hague Regulations. It must, however, be specially observed that any such intervention, if it ever occurred, would have nothing to do with the war in general and would not make the intervening State a party to the war, but would concern only the international delinquency committed by the one belligerent through acts of illegitimate warfare.
III REPRISALS
Vattel, III. p. 142—Hall, § 135—Westlake, II. pp. 112-115, and Chapters, pp. 253-258—Taylor, §§ 487 and 507—Wharton, III. § 348B—Moore, VII. § 1114—Bluntschli, §§ 567, 580, 654, 685—Lueder in Holtzendorff, IV. p. 392—Pradier-Fodéré, VIII. Nos. 3214-3221—Bonfils, Nos. 1018-1026—Despagnet, No. 543—Rivier, II. pp. 298-299—Calvo, IV. §§ 2041-2043—Martens, II. § 121—Mérignhac, pp. 210-218—Holland, War, Nos. 119-120—Bordwell, p. 305—Spaight, pp. 462-465—Land Warfare, §§ 452-460—Halleck in A.J. VI. (1912), pp. 107-118.
Reprisals between Belligerents in contradistinction to Reprisals in time of Peace.
§ 247. Whereas reprisals in time of peace are to be distinguished from retorsion and are injurious acts committed for the purpose of compelling a State to consent to a satisfactory settlement of a difference created through an international delinquency,[471] reprisals between belligerents are retaliation of an illegitimate act of warfare, whether constituting an international delinquency or not, for the purpose of making the enemy comply in future with the rules of legitimate warfare. Reprisals between belligerents are terrible means, because they are in most cases directed against innocent enemy individuals, who must suffer for real or alleged offences for which they are not responsible. But reprisals cannot be dispensed with, because without them illegitimate acts of warfare would be innumerable. As matters stand, every belligerent and every member of his forces knows for certain that reprisals are to be expected in case they violate the rules of legitimate warfare. And when nevertheless an illegal act occurs and is promptly met with reprisals as a retaliation, human nature would not be what it is if such retaliation did not act as a deterrent against a repetition of illegitimate acts.