Die Satzung des Völkerbundes. Commentaries by Dr. Walter Schücking and Dr. Hans Wehberg. Berlin: Franz Vahlen, 1921, pp. xxiii, 521. The League of Nations has ceased to be a mere project. So long as it was a project, the literature dealing with it was largely non-technical. Now that fifty-one member-states have adopted this method of regulating their international relations within the scope of the League, treatises like the present will follow the method of jurisprudence. It is perhaps easier to dispense with legal aid in the creation of a plan than in its interpretation and detailed execution. It is probably not wise to do so in the former stage; it is impossible in the latter. The book before us is a commentary on the Covenant, viewed as a constitutive statute. Political and historical material enter into the text only so far as required for legal elucidation. The authors are well known German publicists, active for many years before the war in liberal activities devoted to better international relations, which signifies that their influence was not appreciable until after the war. Dr. Schücking then became a member of the official German delegation at Versailles. Dr. Wehberg is head of the Division of International Law in the German League of Nations Union. The introduction and the historical portions are complete, without being ponderous. The narrative begins with ancient times but is not involved with minutiae. The projects for a league advanced prior to and during the war are explained in some detail and a fairly complete picture is given of the development of the league plan at Paris. The authors are not to be blamed for laying too much emphasis on certain plans which had practically no influence in the deliberations, as these were widely published, where others were not. The proposals of the Fabians and of General Smuts are deemed by the authors to have been more highly regarded than any of the others, while the influence of the conference of the thirteen neutral Powers which met at Paris in March and April, 1919, is considered negligible, like that of the proposals made by the German delegation at Versailles. "This most solemn compact which was intended to realize the centuries-old dreams of the civilized world, came to be, then, not the result of common detailed deliberations, but was presented to humanity as the dictate of the victor" (p. 17). Notwithstanding a few complaints of similar character, the prevailing tone of the authors is not unfavorable to the League, thus differing from the judgment of one of their former colleagues, the late Dr. Fried, to whom, together with the late Dr. Lammasch, the book is dedicated. Indeed, the authors believe the results to be most promising. While they disapprove of the hegemony of the Great Powers, they believe the League to be especially valuable because of its opportunities for quick initiative; "the League is not merely a community of law but a community of work, having positive tasks" (p. 116). They also maintain that it is a layman's error to regard as war the use of force by a community of states against an offending state. The perfect idea of law presupposes that its majesty must be upheld by force if it cannot be otherwise achieved. This is not war. "For war always was and to a degree still is an international procedure between equals, for whom there is provided no obligatory tribunal" (p. 49). The main part of the book is a detailed commentary on the Covenant, article by article, following the official texts in French and English and a German translation. Full reference is made to the debates in committee, in the plenary sessions of the Peace Conference, and in the sessions of the Council and Assembly. Legal methods are used to analyze the text and explain discrepancies with other instruments such as the treaties of peace. Particularly interesting, for example, from an American viewpoint, is the discussion of Article 22 on Mandates. The authors point out the conflict between this article, and Article 119 of the Treaty of Versailles, the former implying that the sovereignty of the German colonies is in the League of Nations, whereas the latter places it with the Principal Powers. They reach the conclusion that the terms of the Treaty are provisional because of the controlling Article 118, whereas the Covenant is definite; therefore the transfer of sovereignty to the Principal Powers is to be considered divested whenever the Council takes action. The situation is rendered more complicated by the fact that the United States, one of the "Principal Allied and Associated Powers," is not a member of the League. The authors seem to find in the protest of the United States of February 21, 1921, in respect of the mandate for Yap, implied recognition that sovereignty rests with these Powers, not in the League, nor with the Supreme Council. The situation is by no means free from difficulty. The authors have at least clarified the issues on this and many similar points where they fail to find a solution. There is no internal authority within the League to interpret the Covenant, so the authors discreetly await the functioning of the Permanent Court of International Justice (p. 490). ARTHUR K. KUHN. La Doctrine Scholastique du Droit de Guerre. Par Alfred Vanderpol. Paris: A. Pedone, 1919, pp. xxviii, 534. Coleman Phillipson, who, since the death of Ernest Nys, may lay undisputed claim to supremacy in the early history of international law, about seven years ago made the following remarkable statement: Modern international law undoubtedly owes an inestimable debt to the work of Grotius. This fact is universally recognized, and unceasingly reiterated. But we are, too often, apt to forget that Grotius's work itself owes a very great debt to numerous forerunners. In the middle ages, the glossators and commentators, the Fathers, and the ecclesiastical doctors often discussed incidental questions concerning the law of nations. Later we find more complete treatises on special subjects. The age of monographs begins in the 14th and 15th centuries, when divines and professors of law examine with comparative fulness not only questions of war and reprisals, but also problems emerging in time of peace.1 The statement is remarkable in that it has not been forty years since James Lorimer called attention to "the extreme injustice of the manner in which, down to our own time, it has been customary to speak of the scholastic jurists," 2 at the same time in a footnote giving expression to the belief “that no more valuable contribution could be made to the literature of jurisprudence at the present time than a collection and translation of the portions of these works which have reference to general jurisprudence and international law." This want is being supplied to a considerable extent by the "Classics of International Law," inaugurated ten years ago and now being published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, under the general editorship of Dr. James Brown Scott, but such a series as this does not contemplate brief works or incidental discussions. It is extremely gratifying, therefore, to have the results of the labors of him, whom the celebrated Belgian statesman Beernaert once called "le chevalier de la paix," now incorporated in a single volume. The material collected in this volume and published posthumously was previously presented to the public in various smaller publications of the author, such as Le Droit de Guerre d'après les Théologiens et les Canonistes du Moyen-Age (Paris, 1911), La Guerre devant le Christianisme (Brussels, no date), and articles in the Bulletin de la Société Gratry (which became, in 1910, the Bulletin de la Ligue des Catholiques Français pour la Paix). The first named book is represented by pages 6-158 and 215–249, while the second is represented by pages 161-195, 250-252, 259-266, 271-284 and 325-359. The aim of the present collection is to show the traditional and, in a certain sense, unvarying, character of the Christian doctrine on war. For this purpose, it is divided into three parts. Part I gives an exposé of the scholastic doctrine on war under the following headings: The right intention. Obligations of princes and subjects. Consequences of the doctrine and the rights of the victor. This part is itself written in the scholastic style, with the answering of objections first, followed by a brief yet clear enunciation of the proper principles involved and the addition of supporting excerpts judiciously selected from the Fathers of the Church, the theologians and the canonists. 1 Coleman Phillipson, Franciscus a Victoria, in the Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation, new series, vol. xv (1915), p. 175. 2 James Lorimer, The Institutes of the Law of Nations (London, 1883), vol. i, p. 71. Part II outlines the history of the scholastic doctrine on war from the Old Testament through the Christians of the first three centuries, St. Augustine and St. Thomas, the applications of and departures from the doctrine from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, down to the theologians of the last three centuries. Parts I and II, which constitute about one half of the volume and occupy pages 1-285, ought to be translated into English, published and distributed widely. These two parts, besides the elucidation of the doctrine mentioned above, contain biographical sketches of all the important contributors to that doctrine. Among the Fathers of the Church and theologians will be found St. Augustine, St. Isidore of Seville, St. Thomas Aquinas, the Franciscans Monaldus and Ange Carletti, the Dominicans St. Antoninus, Sylvester, Cajetan, Victoria, Soto, Covarruvias, and Banès, and the Jesuits Bellarmine, Suarez, Vasquez and Lugo. Among the canonists are Gratian, St. Raymond of Peñafort, Innocent IV, Hostiensis (Henry of Segusio), Legnano, Martin of Lodi, Juan Lupo, Francisco Arias, Alfonso Guerreiro and Pierino Belli. Among the civilists and other writers are Bartolus, Bonet, Christine de Pisan, Ayala, Gentili, and a host of others. A service of no little importance is rendered by the indication of the location of the rare works in the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Library at Lyons. Part III contains as pièces justificatives translations of relevant portions of Gratian's Decretum and St. Thomas's Summa, together with Victoria's De Jure Belli and De Indis and Suarez's De Bello in their entirety. An appendix outlines the doctrine of Suarez on international law. An analytical table is also appended. The present volume, however, is not a slavish reproduction of the author's earlier works. Many parts have been entirely rewritten or extended. Such is the case with the lives of St. Thomas, Victoria, Suarez and Gratian. Minor corrections have been made in other lines also. There are, however, more typographical errors than one would expect to see. Inaccuracies are also frequent. But these may be attributed to war-time conditions in the printing industry and to the posthumous publication without the benefit 'It might be worth while in passing to mention the fact that the works of Ayala, Gentili, Victoria and Legnano have appeared in the "Classics of International Law" mentioned above, while the works of Suarez and Belli are in preparation. * On page 433 a line has been omitted without any indication; on page 432, section 418, ten lines have been omitted without any indication. Notes 4 and 5 are jumbled on page 436, as are the notes on pages 451-452. On page 322 it is stated that Victoria received the licentiate in 1522; Nys gives the date as March 24, 1521. Although an asterisk is supposed to be used to indicate notes of the author, frequent omissions of it occur. On page 442 the excerpt cited from St. Jerome is really from St. Gregory, and on page (472 the quotation from Ovid is really from Plautus. In section 20 on page 44 quotations from Suarez do not agree with the same passages in the back part of the book from which they purport to be taken and two lines of the author's own observations have been inserted in the quotation with nothing to indicate they are not part thereof. of the author's careful scrutiny. At any rate they do not lessen the book's value to any appreciable extent. A pleasing addition to the work is a preface by Professor Emile Chenon, of the Faculty of Law of Paris, in which he gives a detailed account of the author's life and works. Alfred Marie Vanderpol was born in 1854 and died in 1915. Although an engineer by profession, he had received his licentiate in law, and was an energetic leader in peace movements in France and Belgium. The Ligue Belge pour la Paix and the Union Internationale (founded in 1912, with headquarters at Louvain) were fostered, if not actually founded, by him. One of his friends, at his solicitation, supplied the funds necessary for the establishment at Louvain of a chair of international law according to Christian principles. Until his death he was closely identified with the Ligue des Catholiques Français pour la Paix, of which he was president and in whose bulletin he began his apostolate of the pen. The author's death shortly after the outbreak of the war, followed within a few years by the death of that indefatigable worker among the scholastic jurists, Ernest Nys, leaves a distinct gap among the cultivators of this field of international law on the continent. HERBERT F. WRIGHT. A Diplomat in Japan. By The Right Hon. Ernest Satow, G.C.M.G., LL.D., D.C.L. London: Seeley, Service and Co., 1921. With Illustrations and Plans, pp. 427. From his retirement in Devon, Sir Ernest Satow, after more than fifty years of active diplomatic service, gives in this volume the record of his first years of foreign experience. In 1861 he went out to the Far East as student interpreter; in 1869 he went home on his first leave a Secretary of Legation. During these years events of great importance to the constitutional development of Japan had taken place and several crises in her nascent foreign relations had occurred. The book, which is in large part based on the detailed personal journal of the author, is therefore a first hand record of a period of great significance in Japanese history by an observer who was often a participant in the events which are described. In spite of this fact the book is curiously impersonal and one realizes with difficulty that this modest young man is calmly writing of naval engagements, of murder and of assaults in the same grave style which he employs with reference to imperial ceremonies, the cost of living or Japanese theatres. On the whole the book has too much detail; the excellent glossary does not relieve the frequent use of technical Japanese terms and titles; and every page fairly bristles with names of people and places of no particular importance. There is not a grain of humor in the entire narrative and the winning of the V. C. receives less attention than a party where much sake is drunk. |