[Letters To """"The Times"""" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) by Thomas Erskine Holland]@TWC D-Link bookLetters To """"The Times"""" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) CHAPTER V 8/11
28 (_h_) of that Convention. I lose not a moment in asking to be allowed to state that my view of the question is, and always has been, the reverse of that attributed to me by my friend Mr.Cohen.No less than three views are entertained as to the meaning of Art.
28 (_h_).
(1) Continental writers, e.g., MM. Fauchille, Kohler, and Ullmann, with the German Whitebook, assert, in the most unqualified manner, that Great Britain and the United States have under this clause abandoned their long-established doctrine as to the suspension of the private rights and remedies of enemy subjects; (2) Our own Government, in a non-confidential reply to an inquiry from Professor Oppenheim, asserts categorically, as does General Davis in the United States, that the clause relates only to the action of a commander in a territory of which he is in occupation; while (3) most English and American writers look upon the meaning of the clause as doubtful.
If Mr. Cohen will look at p.
44 of my _Laws of War on Land_, 1909, he will find that I carry this sceptical attitude so far as to include the clause in question in brackets as "apocryphal," with the comment that "it can hardly, till its policy has been seriously discussed, be treated as a rule of international law." I have accordingly maintained, in correspondence with my Continental colleagues, that the clause should be treated as "non avenue," as "un non sens," on the ground that, while, torn from their context, its words would seem ("ont faux air") to bear the Continental interpretation, its position as part of a "Reglement," in conformity with which the Powers are to "issue instructions to their armed land forces," conclusively negatives this interpretation.
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