The Law of Nations

Chapter X - Of Faith between Enemies,—of Stratagems, Artifices in War, Spies, and some other Practices

chapter x 575 sally accused of making war like a furious barbarian. Thus the wanton destruction of public monuments, temples, tombs, statues, paintings, &c. is absolutely condemned, even by the voluntary law of nations, as never being conducive to the lawful object of war. The pillage and destructionof towns,thedevastationof theopencountry,ravaging,setting fire to houses, are measures no less odious and detestable on every occasion when they are evidently put in practice withoutabsolutenecessity or at least very cogent reasons. But as the perpetratorsof suchoutrageous deeds might attempt to palliate them under pretext of deservedly punishing the enemy,—be it here observed, that the natural and voluntary law of nations does not allow us to inflict such punishments, except for enormous offences against the law of nations: and even then, it is glorious to listen to the voice of humanity and clemency, when rigour is not absolutely necessary. Cicero condemns the conduct of his countrymen in destroying Corinth to avenge the unworthy treatment offeredto the Roman embassadors, because Rome was able to assert the dignity of her ministers, without proceeding to such extreme rigour. chapter x Of Faith between Enemies,—of Stratagems, Artifices in War, Spies, and some other Practices. The faith of promises and treaties is the basis of the peace of nations, as we have shewn in an express chapter (Book II. Ch. XV.). It is sacred among men, and absolutely essential to their common safety. Are we then dispensed from it towards an enemy? To imagine that between two nations at war every duty ceases, every tie of humanity is broken, would be an error equally gross and destructive. Men, although reduced to the necessity of taking up arms for their own defence and in supportof their rights, do not therefore cease to be men. They are still subject to the same laws of nature:—otherwise there would be no laws of war. Even he who wages an unjust war against us is still a man: we still owe him whatever that quality requires of us. But a conflict arises between our§174. Faith to be sacred between enemies. 576 book iii: of war duties towards ourselves, and those which connect us with other men. The right to security authorises us to put in practice, against this unjust enemy, every thing necessary for repelling him, or bringing him to reason . But all those duties, the exercise of which is not necessarily suspended by this conflict, subsist in their full force: they are still obligatory on us, both with respect to the enemy and to all the rest of mankind. Now, the obligation of keeping faith is so far from ceasing in time of war by virtue of the preference which the duties towards ourselves are entitled to, that it then becomes more necessary than ever. There are a thousand occasions, even in the course of the war, when, in order to check its rage, and alleviate the calamities which follow in its train, the mutual interest and safety of both the contending parties requires that they should agree on certain points. What would become of prisoners of war, capitulating garrisons, and towns that surrender, if the word of an enemy were not to be relied on? War would degenerate into an unbridled and cruel licentiousness: its evils would be restrained by no bounds; and how could we ever bring it to a conclusion, and re-establish peace? If faith be banished from among enemies, a war can never be terminated with any degree of safety, otherwise than by the total destruction of one of the parties. The slightest difference, theleastquarrel, would produce a war similar to that of Hannibal against the Romans, in which the parties fought, not for this or that province, not for sovereignty or for glory, but for the very existence of their respective nations .* Thus it is certain that the faith of promises and treaties is to be held sacred in war as well as in peace, between enemies as well as between friends. The conventions, the treaties made with a nation, are broken or annulled by a war arising between the contracting parties, either because those compacts are grounded on a tacit supposition of the continuance of peace, or because each of the parties, being authorised to deprive his enemy of what belongs to him, takes from him those rights which he had conferred on him by treaty. Yet here we must except those treaties by which certain things are stipulated in case of...