Book Review: The British Year Book of International Law 1955–56
| Published date | 01 October 1957 |
| Date | 01 October 1957 |
| DOI | 10.1177/004711785700100814 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
State and the Nation, the one the picture
of
instability, the other solid,
con-
servative and enduring. Mon. Siegfried sees the private citizen as passionately
concerned with the immediate and the practical whereas as amember
of
the'
political community he thinks and acts on abstract principles. The continuity
in French political life
is
not provided by the persistence
of
the same parties so
much as by the persistence
of
anumber
of
ideological groups which form the
nUclei
of
the parties
at
any moment. Their activities and attitudes are governed
by
historical tradition and the appeal to differing temperaments rather than by
the more obvious considerations
of
self-interest. Frenchmen, though intellectually
revolutionary, are politically static and tend to assume that history should adapt
itself to French conceptions rather than that France should adapt herself
to·
industrialization and the
new
world orientation. Thus, though in the forefront
in
suggesting new methods
of
uniting the riven European continent, she can
seldom bring herself to take the actual plunge essential
if
such plans are
to·
take effective shape. As Dr. Brogan points out the revolutionary tradition
is.
more traditional than revolutionary, the instability
of
government
is
accompanied
by
the immobilisme
of
economic life, succeeding crises are the direct result
of
government
inertia-"the
French have erected the evasion
of
responsibility
into asystem
of
government"-while national solidarity
is
born only from the
disintegration
of
defeat.
Mon. Siegfried regrets the increase in the power
of
the Assembly under the
Fourth Republic; its rule is made even worse by the increasing tendency
of
the
deputies to accumulate local responsibilities to which they regard their parlia-
mentary position as merely adjuncts-incidentally afeature which
is
reproduced
to acertain extent in the American Congress. The present fragmentation
of
political authority exists pari passu with adecline in the sense
of
the unity
of
the
state from the point
of
view
of
the executive. He is deeply concerned with the
extent
to
which arigid bureaucracy
and
the nationalized economy is stifling
initiative and flexibility in the more competitive forms
of
enterprise which
France so badly needs for her future development. Dr. Brogan, while saluting
the irrepressible flowering
of
the French genius in all fields save the
politica~
adds that France
"had
yet failed to find institutions that united the French
people and gave them apolitical life worthy
of
their genius".
The last book
is
acollection
of
lectures delivered
at
Oxford in
1955
and cover-
ing
the general history
of
France from various aspects, from pre-historic times
to the present day. The papers dealing with the period before the Revolution
are, on the whole, more rewarding than those on the later period, though that
by
Max Beloff on the Fourth Republic
is
excellent. As acounterblast to those
Who
despair
of
the future
of
France he writes
"Not
since the Middle Ages has
the French Government mattered less; some would answer that not since the
Middle Ages
has
the essence
of
France mattered so much".
The
British Year Book
of
International Law 1955-56. Edited by C. H.
M,
Waldock.
OXford University Press for the
Royal
Institute
of
International Affairs. 55/-.
To the lay reader interested in international affairs the current issue
of
the
British Year Book
of
International
Law
contains three articles
of
particular
interest. The first, by D. 'H. N. Johnson, enquires into the political, legal and
moral effect
of
Resolutions adopted
by
the United Nations General
Assembly-a
question hardly clarified though directly involved in the recent Suez dispute and
the Hungarian revolt; the second the very able paper by Dr. D. W. Bowett
examining the scope and meaning
of
the content
of
the right
of
"collective self-
defence" under the
UN
Charter, and discussing to what extent the treatyarrange-
ments concluded in recent years can be based upon that right.
The third, by Professor C. H. M. Waldock, deals with the decline
of
the
Optional Clause
of
the International Court
of
Justice. Apart from the decreasing
number
of
States bound by the clause, he
is
disturbed by the evidence
of
an
increasing tendency on the part
of
those States who do subscribe
to
it to frame
381
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