Book Review: Digest of the Diplomatic Correspondence of the European States

Abstract

Except for those who regard pre-1914 international law as obsolete and who, in the name of the higher morality and the New Deal would dispense with the past experience of mankind as a guide in regulating international affairs, the last two parts of the monumental Fontes Juris Gentium will be heartily welcomed. The two volumes of this Digest embody the results of several years of painstaking research among the collections of the diplomatic correspondence, instructions and documents of the major European countries for the fifteen years between the Treaty of Paris (1856) and the Treaty of Frankfurt (1871), to extract from them the most important official expressions of law and policy on questions of international law. The documentary material examined for this purpose relates not solely to European affairs, however, but includes correspondence with respect to non-European countries and questions, for example, questions of law arising out of the American civil war and the French (Maximilian's) intervention in Mexico. The material, as in the case of the earlier Digests of the decisions of the Permanent Court of International Justice and the German Supreme Court, is arranged under a detailed classification scheme generally employed in works on international law. The calendar of sources laid under contribution for this Digest makes an impressive list. Three thousand two hundred and twenty-nine extracts are printed. The topical headings are in German, French and English; the documents themselves in their original language, with an occasional translation when it is one lesser known.