Of solemn pacts and paper scraps: International law and the purpose of war,1914–1918

Abstract

The idea of international law figured centrally in Canadian legal professionals’ explanations of the First World War and its justness. Germans were described as perfidious enemies, unwilling to respect law and all too capable of egregious violations of it, whose actions posed an enormous threat to the stability and endurance of the international state system and its legal order. The war, then, was understood as a struggle to safeguard international law against the “savagery” of a world where sovereign states held no regard for lawful conduct. Based on an analysis of Canadian legal publications produced during the war, this article argues that legal attention to international law during the war not only helped to define the conflict but also set the conditions for the internationalism that developed in the postwar years. These concerns about the violation of international law continue to be urgent matters for policymakers and legal analysis today.