The second Hague Peace Conference met in 1907 and produced not less than thirteen conventions and one declaration. This declaration prohibits the discharge of projectiles and explosives from balloons and takes the place of a corresponding declaration of the first Hague Peace Conference. And three of the thirteen conventions, namely that for the pacific settlement of international disputes, that concerning the laws and customs of war on land, and that concerning the adaptation of the principles of the Geneva Convention to maritime war, likewise take the place of three corresponding conventions of the first Hague Peace Conference. But the other ten conventions are entirely new and concern: the limitation of the employment of force for the recovery of contract debts, the opening of hostilities, the rights and duties of neutral Powers and persons in war on land, the status of enemy merchant ships at the outbreak of hostilities, the conversion of merchant ships into war ships, the laying of automatic submarine contact mines, bombardments by naval forces in time of war, restrictions on the exercise of the right of capture in maritime war, the establishment of a Prize Court, the rights and duties of neutral Powers in maritime war.
The Naval Conference of London which met in November 1908, and sat till February 1909, produced the Declaration of London, the most important law-making treaty as yet concluded. Its nine chapters deal with: blockade, contraband, unneutral service, destruction of neutral prizes, transfer to a neutral flag, enemy character, convoy, resistance to search, compensation. The Declaration of London, when ratified, will make the establishment of an International Prize Court possible.
[Sidenote: Value of Codification of International Law contested.]
§ 33. In spite of the movement in favour of codification of the Law of Nations, there are many eminent jurists who oppose such codification. They argue that codification would never be possible on account of differences of languages and of technical juridical terms. They assert that codification would cut off the organic growth and future development of International Law. They postulate the existence of a permanent International Court with power of executing its verdicts as an indispensable condition, since without such a court no uniform interpretation of controversial parts of a code could be possible. Lastly, they maintain that the Law of Nations is not yet at present, and will not be for a long time to come, ripe for codification. Those jurists, on the other hand, who are in favour of codification argue that the customary Law of Nations to a great extent lacks precision and certainty, that writers on International Law differ in many points regarding its rules, and that, consequently, there is no broad and certain basis for the practice of the States to stand upon.