Recent Developments in International and Municipal Law

Abstract

The charge has frequently been heard in the last few years that international law is in a state of suspended animation and paralytic desuetude. Those who have embraced the view that it is not law at all find in the experiences of the last three years what they consider unanswerable support. To the uninformed, these criticisms of international law as a system make a striking appeal. Yet, when exam­ined in the light of fact and history it will be discovered that the criticism, even in its widest application, can extend only to a very limited portion of the rules governing the conduct of war, and that the great body of the so-called law of nations is constantly enforced in international practice and in courts of law