ully inaugurated, it will be its task to
make preliminary preparations for the legislative activity of the
Conferences in the manner just sketched out, and chance will no longer
have the same part to play as heretofore. International legislation will
no longer produce anything so full of gaps as the 'Regulations
respecting the laws of land warfare', which leave essential
matters--for instance, capitulations and armistices--without any
adequate regulation.

[Sidenote: Intentionally incomplete and fragmentary laws.]

44. Of course, where the interests of different states are still
involved in some uncertainty, or are in such antagonism that a complete
agreement is impossible, even the fullest preparation and most
painstaking deliberation will not procure a more satisfactory treatment
for many matters than that the legislation which regulates them should
be (so to say) only experimental and intentionally incomplete and
fragmentary in character. Thus, for example, the Conventions about the
conversion of merchantmen into men-of-war and about the use of mines in
naval war can only be considered as legislative experiments, regulating
these matters merely temporarily and in an incomplete and unsatisfactory
manner. But even conventions which designedly are full of lacunae have
their value. They embody all the same an agreement upon some important
parts of the respective topics, and provide a regulation which in every
case is better than the chaos previously prevailing in the areas in
question. They also constitute a firm nucleus round which either custom
or future legislation can develop further regulation.

[Sidenote: Interpretation of international statutes.]

45. But even if international legislation attains the degree of success
suggested, there still remains another great difficulty which must
indirectly influence legislation itself, and that is the interpretation
of international statutes once they have been enacted. It is notorious
that no generally received rule of the law of nations exists for the
interpretation of international treaties. Grotius and his successors
applied thereto the rules of interpretation adopted in Roman law, but
these rules, despite their aptness, are not recognized as international
rules of construction. It can scarcely be said, however, that
insurmountable difficulties have arisen hitherto out of this situation,
for the majority of treaties have been between two parties, and the
interpret