The classical concept ofInternationalLa w, as developed by Gentilis, Gro tius and their successors, accepted as its starting point the sovereignty of states, from which it followed that (r) the rules of International Law were based upon the general consent of those states; and (2) that, since state sovereignty was not capable of limitation, otherwise than by the consent of the state itself, in the last resort, International Law must accept the fact of war. Two world wars within the space of thirty years, and the development of nuclear weapons of unlimited potential, have compelled statesmen...