LAWS of WAR INTERNATIONAL LAW, (original) (raw)

This book ALaws of War and International Law@ is the result of an extensive search on the documents and texts of the last 150 years about this subject. Many books, studies, collections, basic opinions, manuals have been published in the course of that time. Famous scholars have expressed their opinion in manuals (Westlake, Lauterpacht, Oppenheim, Bassiouni, Hall). Some interesting comparative selections have been published (Schindler, Levie) and due to the recent wars (Gulf, Bosnia, Ruanda, Kosovo) the interest in and books on >war, war crimes, war crime criminals= has flourished. Since 1945 the international community extended rapidly (the contacts between States are no longer dependent on telegram or mail), national business and trade is replaced by a global market and the (financial) stakes for governments are very high. The interdependency of nations has never been so great as in the last decade of the twentieth century. If we compare this global concept with the first (modern) step towards >law of war and international law= in 1856 (the Declaration Respecting Maritime Law, Paris), where seven (at that time >great=) States signed the Declaration at the end of the Crimean War, and as we look at the signatories (Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia, Turkey, United Kingdom) it seems as far away as some historical events in the Roman Empire. While searching for the (legal) texts of the documents we were confronted with a growing feeling of curiosity for the, as we call it, communicative aspects bound to the documents and texts.