Correspondence

Date01 May 1964
Published date01 May 1964
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1964.tb01034.x
CORRESPONDENCE
THE
EDITOR,
Sir,
The nature of some of
Mr.
Jackson’s comments on my book
International
Law and the Use of Force by Btates
(his review
(196e)
27
M.L.R.
247)
is
such that some reply would seem to be necessary.
On the brevity of the early sections of my historical survey,
I
fail to see
how one can introduce this,
or
any other subject, historically in any other
way.
It
could, of course, have been omitted but then
Mr.
Jackson
would
have
been justified in his comment
:
To
readers without any historical knowledge
such an account may well give the impression that nothing of any real
importance was said on the subject of war before this century.” In any case,
the reference to
this century
is misleading
:
the
eighteen pages
criticised
for their brevity end with
1816,
not
1914,
and the nineteenth century received
treatment at pages
19-50, 889-291,
338-340.
With reference to the Kellogg-Briand Pact the reviewer remarks
:
Dr.
Brownlie cites the Nuremburg
[sic]
Trials as showing the importance of the
Pact.
It
is difficult to believe that the Allies’ decision to try the German
leaders was determined by the existence of the Pact.” This statement might
mislead the reader in two ways. First, the “citation” does not stand alone
but comes at the end of a survey of diplomatic practice based
on
the Pact.
Secondly, no one reading the book carefully could get the impression that the
Pact determined the Allies’ decision to try the German leaders. The history
of the decision is set out in some detail
at
pages
159-164
and there
is
no
reference to the Pact in this section.
I
was, of course, concerned with the
legal
significance of the Pact, not its impact on the realm of political decision.
To avoid Mr. Jackson’s criticism
of
my use
of
state practice from the
Communist world one of two courses would have had to be taken. First,
I
could have adopted the scholarly practice of omitting the practice of those
states
I
dislike politically. Secondly,
I
could have inflated the book with
my own political comments on things done and said. In my work
I
used
all
the practice
I
could find
:
in the event the sources used were mostly Anglo-
American, for obvious reasons. Readers of the review might get
a
different
impression. The Soviet declaration of
1933
quoted by Mr. Jackson was
certainly
important
:
it was (as the book makes clear but the reviewer does
not) part of a comrrrunication to the Secretary-General
of
the League, and
it appears in Degras’
Soviet Docments on Foreign Policy.
Wadham College,
The Modern Law Review.
IAN
BROWNLIE.
Oxford.
384

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