The Future of International Law

by L. Oppenheim

[39.] A difficulty of a special kind besets international legislation, owing to the fact that international rules cannot be created by a majority vote, and that, when once in existence, they cannot be repealed save by a unanimous resolution.

A way out found in the difference between universal and general international law.

But when once we free ourselves from the preconception that the equality of states makes it improper for legislative conferences to adopt any resolutions which are not unanimously supported, there is nothing to prevent a substantial result being arrived at even without unanimity. At this point the difference between general and universal international law furnishes a way out. Rules of universal international law must certainly rest on unanimity. It is postulated in the equality of states that no state can be bound by any law to which it has not given its consent. But there is naught to prevent a legislative conference from framing rules of general international law for those states which assent to it and leaving the dissentient states out of consideration. If the inclusion in a single convention of all the points under discussion be avoided, and if the method, adopted at the second Peace Conference, of dividing the topics of discussion among as many smaller conventions as possible be followed, it will always be found possible to secure the support of the greater number of states for the regulation of any given matter. In no long time thereafter the dissentient states will give in their adherence to these conventions, either in their existing or some amended form. Attention will then be paid also to the consolidation of several smaller laws in a single more comprehensive statute. The nature of the case and the conditions of international life call for concessions without which no progress would be practicable. The course of international legislation hitherto shows unmistakably that the trodden path is the right path. And it must be emphasized that it is open to a state to assent to an act of international legislation although some one or other provision thereof be unacceptable to it. In such a case the assent of the state in question is given with a reservation as regards the particular article of the Act, so that it is in no wise bound by that article. Numerous instances of this could be adduced: thus, at the Hague Conference of 1907 Germany withheld her assent to some of the proposed rules of land war, and England to certain articles in Conventions V and XIII.

International laws which are limited in point of time.

[40.] So also, the difficulty is not insuperable as regards the other point, namely, that international enactments when once in existence cannot be repealed or amended save by a unanimous resolution of the participant states. Here, too, the analogy between municipal and international legislation must not be pushed too far. Municipal legislation can at any time be annulled or altered by the sovereign law-maker; but international legislation, for want of a sovereign over sovereign states, is not open to such treatment. Here there is a way out, which was in fact adopted at the second Peace Conference, and also at the Naval Conference of London, namely, the enactment of laws so limited in duration to a period of years, that at the expiry of the period every participant state can withdraw. In this way, for example, it was agreed that the law about the International Prize Court and the Declaration of London should only be in force for twelve years, and that any of the powers which were parties thereto might withdraw twelve months before the expiry of that period, and that, if and as far as no withdrawal ensued, these laws should from time to time be continued in force automatically for a further period of six years. This kind of international legislation, with its time limit and the right of denunciation, is to be recommended wherever more or less hazardous legislative experiments are being made, or where interests are at stake which in course of time are liable to such an alteration as obliges states to insist on the amendment or repeal of the previously made law. For example, the International Prize Court as a whole, and its composition, constitution, and procedure in particular, form an unparalleled experiment. But the fact that its institution is only to be agreed on for a period of twelve years facilitates its general acceptance, because of the possibility of either abrogating it altogether, or of reforming it, should experience show this to be necessary.

International legislation no longer to be left to mere chance.

[41.] However this may be, one point must be decisively emphasized,—international legislation can no longer be left to mere chance. Apart from the Declaration of London and the Geneva Convention, it has always hitherto been a more or less happy chance which has controlled international legislation. Of conscious legislative consideration and deliberation, based on far-reaching, thoroughgoing preparation, there is no trace. For example, the Declaration of Paris of 1856 was but a by-product of the Peace of Paris of the same year. So also the legislation of the first Peace Conference was simply due to the anxiety to accomplish something positive which might conceal the fact that the proposed aim of the Conference—general disarmament, to wit—had in no wise been realized. At the second Peace Conference we did indeed see individual states appear with some well-prepared projects of legislation, but the preparation was entirely one-sided on the part of the states in question, and not general; accordingly, the adoption, rejection, amendment, and final shaping of these projects were also none the less the result of chance. The second Peace Conference itself took steps to prevent a repetition of this, calling the attention of the powers in its Final Act to the necessity of preparing the programme of the future third Conference a sufficient time in advance to ensure its deliberations being conducted with the necessary authority and expedition:

In order to attain this object the Conference considers that it would be very desirable that, some two years before the probable date of the meeting, a preparatory committee should be charged by the Governments with the task of collecting the various proposals to be submitted to the Conference, of ascertaining what subjects are ripe for embodiment in an international regulation, and of preparing a programme which the Governments should decide upon in sufficient time to enable it to be carefully examined by each country.

The Declaration of London thoroughly prepared beforehand.

[42.] In contrast to the rules of the Peace Conferences, a really notable and exemplary preparation took place in connexion with the Declaration of London, and the befitting result was a law excellent alike in matter and in form. England, the state which summoned the Naval Conference of London, made a collection of the topics which would arise, and communicated it to the states attending the Conference with the request that they would send in full statements on the subjects mentioned. After the answers to this request had come in they were collated with regard to each of the points on which discussion would arise, and bases de discussion were elaborated which made a thorough examination of each point possible at the Conference. By this means it was at once made clear when the different states were in accord and when not. The door to compromise was opened. And apart from a few vexed questions an agreement was in this way successfully reached with regard to a comprehensive law resting at every point on exhaustive deliberation.