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ence "which should seek the most effectual means for securing to all peoples the benefits of a real and durable peace, and above all, for putting an end to the progressive development of the present armaments." The conference met at The Hague on May 18, 1899. Twenty-six powers were represented. Thus, for the first time in history, a great international assembly met for the express purpose of acting as a sort of rudimentary legislature by considering not one question alone, but many, and making laws thereon for the whole family of nations. One of the subjects suggested for consideration was a revision of the Brussels draft of 1874. The result of the conference was the giving of international obligation to a body of rules which were, for the most part, exactly similar to those which had been adopted at Brussels, saving modifications derived from various sources, particularly from the Manual of Oxford of 1880.

b. In addition to the rules adopted as above stated, a final Act of the Conference set out three distinct declarations. The first prohibited the throwing of projectiles or explosives from balloons for a period of five years; the second prohibited the employment of projectiles the sole object of which was the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases; and the third prohibited the employment of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body.

25. THE GENEVA CONVENTION OF 1906.-The next step in the development of a codification of the laws of war was taken by the Swiss government which invited the powers signatory to the Geneva Convention of 1864 to a conference for the purpose of discussing the advisability of a revision of the rules adopted at that time. The conference met in June, 1906, thirty-seven powers being represented. A new convention was signed on July 6, 1906. It remedied various serious faults which had been found to exist in the earlier convention, and cleared up numerous misunderstandings growing out of uncertainty as to the meaning of certain words and phrases which rendered some of the earlier provisions unworkable.

26. THE SECOND HAGUE PEACE CONFERENCE, 1907.-a. The second peace conference, which met at The Hague in

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1907, was proposed by the President of the United States "for the purpose of giving fresh development to the humanitarian principles which served as a basis for the work of the first conference of 1899." The initiative in actually calling the conference together was courteously surrendered by President Roosevelt to Nicholas II of Russia. Forty-seven nations were invited to send representatives, and all but three complied.

b. The results of the work of this conference were voluminous, touching a great many of the subjects that required regulation, and form the last great effort to reduce the laws of war to a code and secure for the same the general recognition of the civilized world. We need not refer to them in detail at present as much of their substance constitutes the subject matter of discussions elsewhere in this text. It is enough to say of them here that they included much of the work that had already been done by former conferences, particuarly that of the Hague Conference in 1899, and that many new provisions of importance were added.

27. CONFERENCE ON THE LIMITATION OF ARMAMENT, 1921. At the invitation of President Harding, representatives of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers of the world assembled at Washington in 1921 to consider the subject of the limitation of the armaments of nations. Seven treaties were drafted and agreed upon by the representatives there assembled. One of these treaties had to do with the use of submarines and noxious gases in warfare. (See Sec. V of this chapter, par. 41.) The representatives also approved twelve resolutions (not in the nature of treaties, so requiring no ratification by the governments concerned) the first one of which was for the assembling of a commission of jurists to amend the laws of war. This commission assembled in 1922 and held its last session at The Hague on February 19, 1923. Its work was limited to recently developed implements of war. (See Appendix A, No. 34.) *

*It should be observed at this point that the rules adopted and the declarations announced by the several conferences discussed in this and the preceding paragraphs were not to be binding upon the several nations until assented to by them.

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28. PRESENT SITUATION RESPECTING THE LAWS OF WAR. -In spite of all the efforts related above, it must be admitted that there is as yet no complete code of the laws of war in existence. Other efforts than those mentioned, but which have not received official sanction, have been made to cure defects and fill up gaps, particularly the Declaration of London of 1909 and those made by the Institute of International Law of more recent years. All that can be said is that a few of the customs of war have been incorporated into something of a code, leaving much to the realm of the common or unwritten branch of the custom and laws of

war.

29. TREND AND POSSIBLE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT.-a. It is a fact that since medieval times the laws of war have undergone a great change in the direction of the amelioration of the conduct of war generally. This development has not been brought about entirely by moral considerations. An important factor has been the necessity of discipline in modern armies. The first well disciplined modern army was that of Gustavus Adolphus. During the course of the next 100 years, other European armies found it necessary to maintain discipline according to law in order that they might be successful. That moral considerations have been the dominant force in bringing about their upward trend, however, cannot be denied.

b. One of the most impressive features of the laws of war is that in their influence on the conduct of war they stand apart. Improvements in strategy, tactics, munitions, equipment, and other adjuncts to carrying on war are destructive in their nature. That fact is not altered by the contention that this or that species of weapon or bullet is more humane than some other form of the same thing. The laws of war, on the other hand, tend to preserve and ameliorate rather than to overthrow and destroy; and, while they have moved upward hand in hand with the growth and development of the conduct of war along other lines, their effect has been to continue, so far as possible, the normal and well balanced conditions of peace, not only with respect to neutral nations but also with respect to those nations actual

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ly in belligerency who are playing no direct part in the clash of arms. The laws of war have even gone farther than this. While recognizing the right of the nations at war to destroy human life in battle and to wound the members of the enemy's army in active conflict, yet the moment one of those members is placed hors de combat, either by reason of wounds or capture, the laws of war step in and shield him from further harm until his legal status is so changed that he again becomes an active element.

c. It is useless to speculate upon whether in this interplay of forces the laws of war with their ameliorations on the one hand and the implements of war with their intensive destructive powers on the other will eventually result in victory for the former with the accompaniment of a perpetual world peace. The only thing than can now be said is that the laws of war constitute an imperfect manifestation of what is best in modern civilization, and seem to strive for still higher levels with each stage of development of the human race.

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30. POSITION IN THE REALM OF LAW.-a. It is necessary to an understanding of the modern laws of war that we fix in our minds their position in the general scheme of the affairs of the civilized world. They are not a part of the municipal law. Since they have to do with the relations of states, they constitute a subdivision of international law. b. We have already seen that international law embodies those rules of action which are acknowledged by civilized states as controlling in their dealings with each other,

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and that one of its objects is the avoidance or mitigation of the miseries of war. During peace its influence is exerted in the direction of preventing war altogether. During war it is exerted in the direction of causing hostilities to be conducted along humane lines, and also of securing the observance by nations not at war of certain lines of conduct which have been determined upon as benefitting neutrals. War situations, therefore, bring into play two subdivisions of the rules of international law, one of which has to do with the attitude of neutrals toward each other and toward each of the belligerents, and the other of which governs the conduct of the warring states in their operations against each other as well as the conduct of military government. The last of these two subdivisions is the province of the laws of war.

31. DEFINITION. The laws of war, then, may be defined as that subdivision of international law which prescribes the rights and obligations of belligerents, or, more broadly, those principles and usages which, in time of war, define the status and relations not only of enemies, whether or not in arms, but also of persons present upon the theater of active military operations and persons under military government, and which authorizes their trial and punishment when they become offenders.

32. DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS.-a. The laws of war are unlike military law proper in that they are not comprised in a formal written code, but consist mainly of general rules derived from international law, supplemented by acts and orders of the military power. They are also quite unlike and independent of the ordinary law. In the actual theater of active military operations, for example, the ordinary laws of the land are superseded by the laws of war. The jurisdiction of the civil magistrate which normally upholds the ordinary law is there suspended and military authority and force are substituted in its place. Even the highest law of our land, the Constitution itself, during a crisis or grave national emergency, may, for a time, in the theater of active military operations, be apparently supplanted by the laws of war. Thus in Varner

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