Book Reviews and Notices : A Text-Book of International Law. By ALF Ross (London: Longmans. 1947. Pp. xxi, 313. S. 21. )
| DOI | 10.1177/106591294800100339 |
| Date | 01 September 1948 |
| Author | L.C. Green |
| Published date | 01 September 1948 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
346
A
Text-Book
of
International
Law
.
By
ALF
Ross
(London:
Longmans.
1947.
Pp. xxi, 313.
S. 21. )
Professor
Ross
is
well
known
on
the continent
for
his
writings
on
con-
ceptual
jurisprudence,
and
he
has
sought
in
his
new
book
to
bring
his
socio-
psychological
approach
to
bear
on
the
problems
of
international
law.
His
book,
however,
is
wrongly
titled,
for
A
Text-Book
of
International
Law
should
be
a
work
for
students,
particularly
those
at
the
undergraduate
stage.
Professor
Ross’
book,
however,
is
not
a
work
of
this
sort.
However
much
we
might
like
to
say
that
the
law
of
war
has
receded
in
importance
and
that
the
law
of
peace
replaced
it,
it
is
a
little
too
early
for
text-books
to
dispense
with
the
subject
entirely,
and
particularly
is
this
so
with
books
written
after
the
delivery
of
the
Nuremberg
Judgment
and
its
comments
on
the
Kellogg
Pact.
International
law
is
becoming
more
and
more
concerned
with
international
institutions,
their
purposes,
and
the
law
governing
them,
but
in
this
text-book
there
is
very
little
mention
of
this
rich
field
of
legal
research
and
activity.
The
I.L.O.
is
dealt
with
in
less
than
a
page,
and
nowhere
is
there
any
mention
of
U.N.R.R.A.
or
Bretton
Woods,
while,
although
occasional
reference
is
made
to
the
United
Nations
and
its
Council
and
Assembly,
there
is
no
discussion
of
the
League
of
Nations
or
of
the
United
Nations.
It
is
true
that
a
work
devoted
to
international
law
as
practised
today
need
not
pay
a
great
deal
of
attention
to
history,
but
Professor
Ross’
book
is
not
particularly
devoted
to
practice-few
treaties
or
diplomatic
incidents
are
mentioned
and
only
some
thirty
cases
are
named-and
any
text-
book
of
international
law,
if it
is
to
be
of
value
as
such,
must
give
some
ac-
count
of
the
historical
background
of
the
subject.
Similarly,
one
cannot
help
feeling
that
A
Text-Book
of
f International
Law
should
provide
some
analysis
of
the
problem
of
mandated
territories,
which,
from
the
practical
point
of
view,
is
far
more
important
than
informing
the
student
that
the
Roman
Catholic
Church
and
the
Vatican
State
are
both
subjects
of
inter-
national
law,
and
that
the
Vatican
State
&dquo;stands
in
a
relation
of
vassalage
to
the
Roman
Church&dquo;
(pp.
103-4).
The
research
student
in
jurisprudence
may
be
extremely
interested
in
the
reasons
why
private
international
law
should
really
be
called
&dquo;interlegal
law&dquo;
(p.
73),
and
why
the
traditional
definition
of
international
law
as
a
law
between
states
should
really
be
a
law
between
&dquo;self-governing
communi-
ties&dquo;
(p.
17 )
-although
apparently
international
institutions
are
not
within
this
category-but
it
is
difficult
to
see
what
purpose
such
philosophical
dis-
cussion
serves
in
a
text-book
of
international
law.
As
with
so
many
recent
works
intended
to
prove
a
personal
thesis,
the
book
presents
numerous
examples
of
the
non
sequitur.
Not
everyone
will
agree
that
because
there
have
been
&dquo;numerous
judgments
concerning
rela-
tions
between
the
member
states
of
the
United
States
of
America
in
which
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