We see a general legal persuasion ever in process of more and more distinct formation uniting all civilised peoples.

Men of nations readily disunited and opposed--Germans and French, English and Russians, Spaniards and Dutchmen, Italians and Austrians--are, as a rule, all of one mind as to the principles of international law.
"This is what makes it possible to proclaim an international law of war, approved by the legal conscience of all civilised peoples; and when a principle is thus generally accepted, it exerts an authority over minds and manners which curbs sensual appetites and triumphs over barbarism.

We are well aware of the imperfect means of causing its decrees to be respected and carried out which are at the disposal of the law of nations.
We know also that war, which moves nations so deeply, rouses to exceptional activity the good qualities as well as the evil instincts of human nature.

It is for this very reason that the jurist is impelled to present the legal principles, of the need for which he is convinced, in a clear and precise form, to the feeling of justice of the masses, and to the legal conscience of those who guide them.

He is persuaded that his declaration will find a hearing in the conscience of those whom it principally concerns, and a powerful echo in the public opinion of all countries.
"The duty of seeing that international law is obeyed, and of punishing violations of it, belongs, in the first instance, to States, each within the limits of its own supremacy.