PREFACE

TO THE THIRD EDITION

LASSA FRANCIS LAWRENCE OPPENHEIM, the author of this book, was born near Frankfurt on March 30, 1858. Educated there, and at the Universities of Berlin, Göttingen, Heidelberg, and Leipzig, he showed great versatility of talent, studying philosophy, medicine, and theology as well as law. Among his teachers were Binding, von Jhering, and Bluntschli. In 1886 he began to lecture in the University of Freiburg, and became Extraordinary Professor there in 1889; he was called to a Professorial Chair at Basle in 1891. During these years he wrote several books, mainly upon Criminal Law. He left Basle for England in 1895, determined to devote the mature years of his life to International Law, which he had then recently been teaching. He studied its varied literature with characteristic energy, and set himself to write this treatise, first published in 1905 and 1906. He was then Lecturer in International Law at the London School of Economics. In 1902 he married a daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Cowan, and had one daughter, Mary. In 1908 he succeeded Westlake in the Chair founded at Cambridge by William Whewell, and made it his constant aim to fulfil the charge given to the holder' to lay down such rules and suggest such measures as may tend to diminish the evils of war and finally to extinguish war between nations.'

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was elected an Associate, and then a Member, of the Institute of International Law, and an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence at Madrid. As Whewell Professor he devoted himself to the duties of his office, lecturing to large classes and watching with special care over the training of Whewell scholars. All who were thus drawn within his circle were fascinated by his enthusiasm and personal charm. He brought out a second edition of this treatise in 1912, and was writing monographs and contributing articles to many papers. He edited the Zeitschrift für Völkerrecht in collaboration with Kohler until the outbreak of the war. In 1909 he had published International Incidents—a book of problems for discussion with his pupils. A short study of the Panama Canal Conflict was widely read, and with General Edmonds he prepared a manual of Land Warfare for the guidance of Officers of His Majesty's Army. His next work was to collect the papers of John Westlake, and to edit a series of contributions to International Law and Diplomacy.

During these Cambridge days his reputation had spread all over the world, and he enjoyed to the full the new opportunity thus brought to him. He sought, and gained easily, the friendship of distinguished jurists everywhere; and through a cordial exchange of opinions he was able to study their varying points of view. For such a work his training in different legal systems had especially fitted him, since his conceptions of jurisprudence were truly international. Visitors came to Whewell House from many lands, and his wife, who shared his interest in his work, his friends, and his pupils, joined in welcoming them to their home. Warmly received, they went and came again. In the

Professor's private room at the Law Schools is a gallery of photographs of international lawyers of almost every nationality.

Then came the war. The guilty diplomacy of Germany, and the crime of the German armies in Belgium, filled him with horror, to which he gave public expression. He had already offered his services to the British Government, and was able to lend his knowledge and prestige towards the overthrow of a system which would have throttled the Law of Nations. The new uses for this book soon exhausted the second edition; but he would not then publish a third, and confined himself to collecting material and recording the changes which each day brought. He felt that the stress of events was too great for him to mould judgments that should be fashioned in a mind in repose. So he looked to the United States, then at peace, to sustain the legal traditions of International Law during the struggle, and himself became Corresponding Member of the American Institute of International Law in 1915. He also hoped that an American jurist would first tell the legal story of the war, and this hope his friend, Professor Garner of Illinois, has brought to fulfilment. With cautious sympathy he watched the growth of the League of Nations movement, and three lectures which he had delivered upon it were in the press when Germany asked for an armistice.

He at once began to prepare the new edition of this treatise. He was eager to point out that during the World War 'not the whole of International Law has gone to pieces, but only parts of the Law of War,' and that the Law of Peace is the centre of gravity of International Law.' But the strain of the war had overtaxed his health, and the ill effects

now revealed themselves. His friends found him in the summer of 1919 with his enthusiasm impaired by physical weariness, and he spoke regretfully of the mass of new material before him. He doubted whether he would live to work through it. At the beginning of August he went to Wales, breaking away from a study of the German Treaty. He had just heard that the University was to confer upon him the degree of Doctor of Letters. Rest and change did not restore him, and he came home dangerously ill. He died on October 7, 1919.

This is no place to set a value upon his achievements, or to voice the affection and esteem of those who knew him. That is being done by his old friend, Edward Arthur Whittuck, to whom the former editions of this treatise were dedicated, in the new British Year Book of International Law. His power of insight, his passion for research he gave freely in the cause of the Law of Nations. His optimism, so attractive to all, was tempered by sober understanding. 'I will not deny,' he wrote at the end of the war, 'that the League may fall to pieces; and that a disaster like the present may again visit mankind.' But such thoughts did not deter him. To him labour in International Law was service for humanity; for future generations he could give no more than his best, and would give no less.

It was Oppenheim's practice to work at his book day by day, now rewriting a paragraph, now marking a page for revision in the light of an article or a lecture, now recording new incidents on the ample and well-ordered leaves of his own copy. So it was found when he died; a few chapters, but only a few, were ready for the printer. But now the

rewritten paragraphs, the manuscript notes, have been embodied in the text. To mark each minor change in Oppenheim's words unfortunately proved impracticable, though the attempt was abandoned with reluctance. However, unnecessary changes have been scrupulously avoided, and views and opinions have been nowhere interpolated. So far the task was less difficult. But in July 1919 the author's notes ended; his last unfinished work was upon the German Treaty, then just signed, and many crowded months have since gone by. Mrs. Oppenheim and Mr. Longman desired that the narrative should be brought down to the date of publication, and this has been done by recording events to the end of May 1920. But the reader will not be at a loss to distinguish these notes and paragraphs. They are many that deal with the German Treaty, all that comprise later happenings, and a few others which should here be mentioned. Sections 50a and 506 were written with some guidance from the author's jottings. Developments within the British Empire made changes in Sections 94a and 946 inevitable. Sections 197a to 197c had to be revised to embody the new International Air Convention. The sections dealing with International Commissions and Offices, which the author had marked for revision, have been partly rewritten, in order to incorporate recent events. For the same reason modifications have been made in Section 476a (the International Prize Court proposed by the unratified xith Hague Convention), and new matter has been added to Section 4766 (proposals for an International Court of Justice). In the lists of law-making treaties and of non-political Unions such additions or variations have been made as were rendered necessary by the Peace Conference of 1919. The sections