Conclusion
The status of international law at the end of World War I was in critical condition, the
most striking example of which was the “scrap of paper” statement that echoed around the world.
This paper has only presented the legal analysis of two major issues from the war, and a look at
all the issues would be necessary before making any sweeping conclusions about the
effectiveness of international law to restrain countries from pursuing courses of action in their
national interest.
However, examination of the other issues would confirm that Germany
violated many of the international legal obligations which bound it, including gross violations of
the laws of war, indiscriminate sinking of ships on the high seas through submarine warfare, and
the failure to respect the rights of neutral states throughout the war. But the Germans were not
the only ones to violate international law.
The starkest example (among several arguable
violations) was the British blockade of the Central powers which clearly exceeded the scope of a
blockade permitted under the law at the time, violating both the rights of belligerents and
neutrals. However, as is customary at the end of a war, the world focused on the violations
committed by the vanquished, and the victors for the first time in history even resolved to hold
some German officials criminally responsible for violations of the laws of war (see Articles 227230 of the Treaty of Versailles).
From the analysis of the two issues studied in this paper, the consistent theme is that
states followed their national interest during World War I. The alliance treaties generally were
aligned with each states’ national interest (with the exception of Italy and Romania), which made
it fairly easy to comply with the obligations flowing from the treaties.
That branch of
international law (obligations mutually consented to by treaty) is usually only compromised
when a state’s national interest changes, leading the state to renege on its prior obligations.
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Furthermore, where the alliance treaties did not mandate any specific course of action, the major
powers chose to honor the expectations surrounding the alliances, and in doing so, they brought
the two camps into an unavoidable conflict that devastated the continent. However, in the case
of Belgian neutrality, Germany’s legal obligation clashed with its national interest in conducting
the war effort, and Germany chose to follow its national interest instead of its legal obligation. A
study of the other legal issues from the war would also show that states often followed their
national interest when that interest collided with a legal duty, which is troublesome conclusion
for international law. To be effective, international law must constrain states’ behavior and
prohibit them from taking actions that would otherwise be in their best interest but are contrary
to legal norms. Otherwise there is no rule of law, and the effectiveness of legal norms depends
on the voluntary cooperation of states. This is the persistent weakness international law faces, a
weakness cited by many commentators even today.
There may be many reasons why states follow their national interest rather than their
legal obligations. First and foremost, states naturally pursue policies that they deem to be in their
best interest, and there will always be the temptation to shirk one’s legal duties. That temptation
can only be minimized where the rule of law plays a strong role in international relations,
imposing penalties (both actual sanctions as well as effects on the reputation and credibility) on
those who breach their duties. Without such penalties, there is no reason to forgo one’s temporal
interests to comply with larger and more long-term objectives of restraint, when other states are
not likely to reciprocate one’s commendable behavior. At the time of World War I, the penalties
imposed on breaching states were not well-defined, because international law was much less
developed than it is today. There were few enforcement regimes in force then (query whether
there are a substantial number today), and as the major powers had allies to support their actions
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and prevent the enemy powers from taking serious responsive measures, one can assume that
there was little to counterbalance the temptation to renege on international obligations.
Add to this decisional process the fact that World War I was an absolute war of
nationalistic honor: to lose was simply out of the question. Thus, each side would stop at
nothing in order to win, and in that context, it is not hard to understand why legal obligations
during World War I were not always followed. International obligations could simply not
constrain states in their efforts to preserve their very existence, and the German doctrine of
kriegsraison was the clearest attempt to explain the necessity of ignoring those obligations.
Consequently, immediately following the conclusion of the war in 1918, there was great concern
about the efficacy of international law. In particular, kriegsraison was a severe threat to the
viability of international law, because though the legal norms had been created to forbid certain
actions even in the ultimate struggles of war, the German doctrine would have permitted
Germany to ignore a legal obligation if it clashed with any military interest. Clearly this
situation had to be dealt with if the law was to be resurrected as an effective constraint.
Nonetheless, though international law was not always effective during the war, it played
an important role in several contexts. It served as the framework for the debate about the war
and helped separate the good actors from the bad. Nations do care that their governments are
complying with international law (with the possible exception that in extreme circumstances,
people will believe a course of action justified no matter what the law says about it). However,
to the German government and its people, the invasion of Belgium cannot fall into that
exception, given the dozens of attempted justifications advanced on behalf of their actions.
Germany clearly wanted to escape the stigma of being in violation of international law, both in
terms of the internal and external consequences that such a violation would present. Moreover,
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many of the legal norms in place at the time were respected. Most notably, France decided not to
violate Belgian neutrality, even though it may have provided a considerable military advantage
that could have dramatically changed the length of the war. Other examples would certainly be
found in a study of some of the issues not discussed in this paper.
Finally, despite the fact that international law did not prevent violations of legal norms,
this did not mean that the law was useless, since no municipal law can prevent people from
violating it, even with strong mechanisms for enforcement of the law. Thus, many lawyers and
politicians were not dissuaded from its potential and resolved to strengthen it through the further
development of legal norms as well as the creation of sanctions for violations (including personal
sanctions). This trend, which began at the peace conference in Paris in 1919, has continued
throughout the rest of the century to the present day. But as Hitler, Hussein and Milosevic have
all shown us, there is still no effective way to bind rogue leaders to the dictates of international
law, and as long as there is no more sovereign power than the states themselves, international
law will be forced to react to flagrant violations of its norms. Nevertheless, though not 100%
effective, international law plays an important role in society, and nations must work together to
strengthen it, not scrap it altogether, when violations occur.
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