vided
in the interest of those wounded in battle, explosive bullets under the
weight of 400 grammes forbidden, the Suez Canal neutralized, and so
forth.

[Sidenote: International Administrative Union.]

7. Another fact of great importance is the endeavour, which first
manifested itself in the World Postal Union of 1874, to carry out the
international administration of common interests, economic and other, by
means of more or less general international unions. In this way a series
of international administrative unions, often conjoined with special
international boards, have been called into existence.

[Sidenote: Legislation of the Peace Conferences and of the Naval
Conference of London.]

8. With the end of the nineteenth and the first decade of the twentieth
century, in which occur the first and second Peace Conferences at The
Hague and the Naval Conference of London, the development of
international law enters upon a new and pregnant epoch. If hitherto,
despite the momentous law-making treaties of the nineteenth century,
international law was essentially a book-law, a system erected by
greater or smaller authorities on the foundations of state practice and
in its details often uncertain and contested, it is now subjected more
and more, and in a wide domain, to the legislating influence of
law-making international conventions. To mention only the principal
matters: A code has been issued which, full of lacunae as it is,
nevertheless encompasses the whole area of land war; it has been laid
down that war shall only be begun by a declaration of war; the
employment of force for the recovery of contract-debts has been
forbidden; the rights and duties of neutrals in land war and naval war,
the treatment of enemy merchant vessels at the outbreak of hostilities,
and the conditions of the conversion of merchant vessels into men-of-war
have been legislatively fixed; rules concerning the laying of submarine
mines, concerning bombardment by naval forces in time of war, concerning
the application of the principles of the Geneva Convention to naval
warfare, concerning certain limitations on the right of prize in naval
warfare have been agreed on; many states have concurred in a prohibition
of the discharge of explosive missiles from air-ships; and a code of the
rules of naval warfare, so far as it touches the trade of neutrals,
dealing with the topics of blockade, contraband of war, unneutral
service, destruction of neutra