Note 283 — Chapter XXIX · FOREIGN RELATIONS

This is a great and fundamental weakness of international law, that there is no executive authority to apply it and there are no courts to enforce its rules when nations disobey. During the World War the rules of international law were violated on many occasions, for example, in the use of poison gas, the bombing of hospitals, the sinking of hospital ships, the forcing of prisoners to labor on military works, and the illegal detention of neutral ships. Yet in spite of these violations international law emerged from the war stronger than it was before. The nations which violated international law most shamelessly were the ones that lost the war, and their defeat was due in no small measure to the resentment which was aroused throughout the world by reason of these violations.