Justice among Nations. A History of International Law - Stephen C. Neff

Dreams Born and Shattered 351

infl amed aft er the handing down of light sentences to persons convicted. As

a result of dissatisfaction with the Leipzig pro cess, France and Belgium re-

activated plans for trials before their national tribunals. For this purpose,

they proceeded to arrest accused Germans who happened to be located in

zones that were occupied by their forces. By December 1924, over twelve

hundred Germans had been convicted by French courts- martial. Th e Bel-

gians tried about eighty cases. Th e Leipzig pro cess nevertheless continued at

least a vestigial existence until it was formally abandoned by the Nazi gov-

ernment in 1933.

An Age of Reform

In the aft ermath of the Great War, international lawyers perhaps had more

reason than most to brood morosely over their share of responsibility for the

tragedy. One of the gloomier ones was Charles Fenwick, an American pro-

fessor of po liti cal science at Bryn Mawr College. His principal target was the

technocratic, apo liti cal outlook of mainstream positivism, which had gone

too far in simply accepting the world as it was and done too little to make it

better.

When we read the books of Hall and of Westlake, of Bonfi ls and Rivier,

of de Louter, von Liszt, or any of the other outstanding treatises, even

that of Oppenheim, we are unable to comprehend how they could have

failed so completely to foresee the future and call for a constructive de-

velopment of the law. Th e conception of a “positive” approach to the law

laid a heavy hand upon international lawyers.

Th ere was still the possibility, though, of making amends in the future— and
there was a palpable determination on the part of the many to do just that.
During the interwar period, there was an intense fl urry of activity across a
broad range of fronts. Some of the innovations are relatively well known and
can therefore be largely (if regrettably) omitted from the present account.
Th e League of Nations is foremost here. It was designed as a po liti cal rather
than a judicial body— as a mechanism for aligning state policies in such a
manner as to minimize the chances of outbreak of war. It included a collective