Note 16 — Chapter VI · SOCIAL COMPLEXITY AND ETHICAL IMPOTENCE

Commenting on the first Hague conference Count Holstein of the German foreign office made some realistic observations which may not have justified his obstructive conclusions but which are nevertheless pertinent. He wrote: “Subjects of international law are states and not individuals. It will therefore be formally difficult and practically impossible to isolate the individual judge from the passions and interests of the whole in a way that happens or is supposed to happen in private law. Of all conceivable judges Great Powers are least disinterested, for in every conceivable question of any importance that may come up all Great Powers are interested à un degre quelconque. An impartial decision is therefore excluded by the nature of things.... Small disinterested states as subjects, small questions as objects of arbitral decision are conceivable; great states and great questions are not.” (Quoted by Dickinson in International Anarchy, p. 351.)