Abstract
A new body of multilateral treaties sought to limit the possibilities for the outbreak of war and to curtail the scope of warfare. Japan signed the 1856 Declaration of Paris and the Geneva Convention of 1864 in the 1880s, and participated prominently in the two Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. Japan’s facility with the international laws of war was put to the test in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. Japan demonstrated to the West that its “civilized warfare” respected Japan’s commitments to the laws of war, and Japan’s exploitation of gaps in the law was put to good use at The Hague, when Japan helped to revise the laws of neutrality, maritime warfare, and declarations of war in order to change the rules of what had formerly been an exclusive European club.
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Notes
Theodore D. Woolsey, Introduction to the Study of International Law, 4th ed., revised and enlarged (New York: Scribner, Armstrong, & Co., 1874), 29–32. Woolsey’s treatise was translated into Chinese in 1877 and that translation reprinted in Japan in 1878 and 1879.
Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, trans. J. Chitty (Philadelphia: T. & J.W Johnson, 1853), 429; Christian Wolff, Jus Gentium Methodo Scientifica Pertractatum, trans. J. Drake (Oxford: Clarendon, 1934), 36f, 486f; Henry Wheaton, Elements of International Law, 8th ed., ed. Richard Dana ([1866] repr. Oxford: Clarendon, 1936), 309f; Robert Phillimore, Commentaries upon International Law (Philadelphia: Johnson, 1854), vol. 3: 99, 442; and T. J. Lawrence, The Principles of International Law (London: Macmillan, 1895), 290, 293. James Lorimer too described war as an “abnormal jural relation” in The Institutes of the Law of Nations (Edinburgh: Wm. Blackwood and Sons, 1883–84), vol. 2: 10–14, 18–23.
Barry Buzan, From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 139–45, 168–74; see also K. J. Holsti, Taming the Sovereigns: Institutional Change in International Politics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), Chapter 9 (esp. pp. 297–9).
Robert B. Valliant, “The Selling of Japan: Japanese Manipulation of Western Opinion, 1900–1905,” Monumenta Nipponica 29.4 (1974): 415–38; and Kenshō: Nichi-Ro sensō, ed. Yomiuri shinbunsha shuzaidan (Tokyo: Chūōkōron shinsha, 2005), 161–71.
See Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), Chapter 1; and Philippe Rygiel, “Une impossible tâche? L’Institut de Droit International et la régulation des migrations internationales 1870–1920” (PhD diss., Université Paris I, 2011), 36–58.
Ariga’s reputation was based on his definitive works on the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars and his Bankoku senji kōhō (The International Law of War), which served as a textbook for students at the Japanese Army and Navy war colleges. He also helped to found the Japanese Red Cross, about whose operations in the Russo-Japanese War he wrote a widely read work. See Matsushita Sachiko, “Nichi-Ro sensō ni okeru kokusaihō no hasshin: Ariga Nagao o kiten to shite,” in Nichi-Ro sensō, ed. Gunji shigakkai (Tokyo: Kinseisha, 2004–2005): vol. 1: 195–210; Ichimata Masao, Nihon no kokusaihōgaku o kizuita hitobito (Tokyo: Nihon kokusai mondai kenkyūjo, 1973), 67–80; and Paula S. Harrell, Asia for the Asians: China in the Lives of Five Meiji Japanese (Portland, ME: MerwinAsia, 2012), 243–74.
Ariga Nagao, La guerre Sino-Japonaise au point de vue du droit international (Paris: Pedone, 1896) and La guerre Russo-Japonaise au point de vue continental et le droit international (Paris: Pedone, 1908). See also two defenses of Japan’s treatment of prisoners of war: Henri Harburger, “Du manque de parole des prisonniers de guerre,” RDILC ser. 2, vol. 2 (1900): 151–8; and Akiyama Masanosuke, “Règlements et instructions du gouvernement Japonais sur le traitement des sujets russes pendant la guerre Russo-Japonaise,” RDILC ser. 2, vol. 8 (1905): 567–84, 706–16 and vol. 9 (1905): 211–29, 297–315.
Takahashi Sakue, Cases on International Law During the Chino-Japanese War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1899) and International Law Applied to the Russo-Japanese War (London: Steven & Sons, 1908). His most famous work was Senji kokusai kōhō (1900), a treatise on the international law of war.
Takahashi Sakue, Eisen ‘Kōshō’ gō no gekichin (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1903), 140–3.
See Kajima Morinosuke, Nichi-Ro sensō [= Nihon gaikōshi, vol. 7] (Tokyo: Kajima kenkyūjo shuppankai, 1970), 120–7; Kamikawa Hikomatsu, ed., Japan-American Diplomatic Relations in the Meiji-Taisho Era, trans. Kimura Michiko (Tokyo: Pan-Pacific, 1958), 204–33; Kenshō: Nichi-Ro sensō, ed. Yomiuri shinbunsha shuzaidan, 24–8; Matsumura Masayoshi, Nichi-Ro sensō to Kaneko Kentarō: kōhō gaikō no kenkyū, rev. and enlarged ed. (Tokyo: Shin’yūdō, 1987), 13–15, 40, 110f, 140f, 491; Matsumura Masayoshi, “Yōroppa ni okeru ‘kōhō dantō daishi’ toshite no Suematsu Kenchō,” in Nichi-Ro sensō, ed. Gunji shigakkai, vol. 1: 125–40; Ian Nish, “Suematsu Kencho: International Envoy to Wartime Europe,” International Studies Discussion Papers (STICERD, London School of Economic and Political Science) May 2005: 12–24; Valliant, “The Selling of Japan,” 422–9; John Albert White, The Diplomacy of the Russo-Japanese War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), 156–63; and Suematsu Kenchō, The Risen Sun (London: Archibald Constable & Co., 1905), vii–ix.
Kentaro Kaneko, “The Far East After the War,” The World’s Work 9 (2/1905): 5868–71; Kentaro Kaneko, “The Yellow Peril is the Golden Opportunity for Japan,” North American Review 179 (11/1904): 641–8; and Kogoro Takahira, “Why Japan Resists Russia,” North American Review 178 (3/1904): 321–7.
See Douglas Howland, “Japanese Neutrality in the Nineteenth Century: International Law and Transcultural Process,” Transcultural Studies 1 (2010): 24–8.
See Douglas Howland, “The Sinking of the S.S. Kowshing International Law, Diplomacy, and the Sino-Japanese War,” Modern Asian Studies 42.4 (2008): 673–703.
Ariga, La guerre Sino-Japonaise, 12–16; see also S. C. M. Paine, The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 112–21.
Joseph R. Baker and Louis W. McKernan, Selected Topics Connected with the Laws of Warfare, as of August 1, 1919 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1919), 24–32; and Lawrence, The Principles of International Law, 299–302.
Kan’ichi Asakawa, The Russo-Japanese Conflict: Its Causes and Issues (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1904), 342–4; Nagaoka Harukazu, “La guerre Russo-Japonaise et le droit international,” RDILC 36 [2nd series, vol. 6] (1904): 461–79; Suematsu, The Risen Sun, 64–70, 92–7; Teramoto Yasutoshi, Nichi-ro sensō igo no Nihon gaikō (Tokyo: Shinzansha, 1999), 15–30; and Gaimushō, Nihon gaikō monjo, repr. ed. (Tokyo: Nihon kokusai rengō kyōkai, 1950–63), vol. 51 (1904–05/Nichi-ro sensō, vol. 1): 1–4, 139–55. I abbreviate this last work as NGM herein.
Francis Rey, “Japon et Russie—guerre” [part 3], RGDIP 13 (1906): 612–27.
Charles Leroux, Le droit internationalpendant laguerre maritime Russo-Japonaise (Paris: Pedone, 1911), 3–12; Takahashi, International Law Applied to the Russo-Japanese War, 22–5; Ariga, La guerre Russo-Japonaise, 30–2; and C. J. B. Hurst and F. E. Bray, Russian and Japanese Prize Cases (London: HMSO, 1912–13), vol. 2: 1–11.
The IDI committee was led by Albéric Rolin, who prepared an initial “Rapport sur la question de la déclaration de guerre,” Annuaire de l’Institut de droit international 20 (1904): 64–70; and a second “Rapport,” Annuaire de l’Institut de droit international 21 (1906): 27–55. Minutes of the general discussion appear as “Commencement de la guerre au XXe siècle: Questions de la déclaration de guerre,” Annuaire de l’Institut de droit international 21 (1906): 269–93.
Marius Maurel, De la déclaration de guerre (Paris: Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence, 1907), 106; and A. Mérignhac, “Préface,” in Maurel, xiii.
Leroux, Le droit international pendant la guerre maritime Russo-Japonaise, 9f; Frédéric de Martens [Fedor Martens], “Les hostilités sans déclaration de guerre—à propos de la guerre russo-japonaise,” RGDIP 11 (1904), 148–50. See also Ernest Nys, “La guerre et la déclaration de guerre—quelques notes,” RDILC ser. II, vol. 6 (1905): 517–42. German jurists differed as to whether a declaration of war was necessary prior to the opening of hostilities; more typically “continental” was Emanuel von Ullmann, “Der Krieg in Ostasien und das Völkerrecht,” Die Woche (Berlin) 6.8 (1904): 322–3; and more sympathetic to Japan was [Dr.] Siehl, “Der Angriff der Japaner gegen Russland im Lichte des Völkerrechts,” Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung 9.6 (1904): 281–5.
Nagaoka, “La guerre Russo-Japonaise et le droit international,” 475–79; and Nagaoka Harukazu, “Étude sur la guerre Russo-Japonaise au point de vue du droit international,” RDILC 12 (1905): 603–5. See also the survey by J. F. Maurice, Hostilities without Declaration of War (London: HMSO, 1883).
Amos S. Hershey, The International Law and Diplomacy of the Russo-Japanese War (New York: Macmillan, 1906), 58–61, 66–70; T. J. Lawrence, War and Neutrality in the Far East, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1904), 26–36; and F. E. Smith [Birkenhead] and N. W. Sibley, International Law as Interpreted during the Russo-Japanese War (London: Fisher Unwin, 1905), 51–8.
Takahashi, International Law Applied to the Russo-Japanese War, 20–5; see also Leroux, Le droit international pendant la guerre maritime Russo-Japonaise, 10f. Takahashi’s major work on the laws of war began with the state’s right to wage war; see Senji kokusai kōhō [enlarged ed.] (Tokyo: Tetsugaku shoin, [1902]), 1–15. By contrast, his colleague Ariga Nagao’s textbook began with obligations under international law such as the Geneva Convention; see Bankoku senji kōhō (Tokyo: Rikugun daigakkō, 1894), 1–14.
Ellery C. Stowell, “Convention Relative to the Opening of Hostilities,” AJIL 2.1 (1/1908): 52.
Henri Ebren, “Obligation juridique de la déclaration de guerre,” RGDIP 11 (1904): 133–48; Maurel, De la déclaration de guerre, 124–45. See also Charles Dupuis, “La déclaration de guerre,” RGDIP 13 (1906): 734; and Antoine Pillet, “La guerre doit-elle être précédée d’une déclaration?” Revue politique et parlementaire 40 [no. 118] (1904): 50–7. Louis Féraud-Giraud noted the difficulties created for neutral powers: “De la neutralité,” RGDIP 2 (1895): 291–6.
William Isaac Hull, The Two Hague Conferences and their Contributions to International Law (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1908), 263.
James Brown Scott, ed., The Hague Conventions and Declarations of 1899 and 1907, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1918), 96; and The Hague International Peace Conferences, The Proceedings of the Hague Peace Conferences: Translations of the Official Texts, ed. James Brown Scott (New York: Oxford University Press, 1921), vol. 4: 157–65.
Report of Andrew White, quoted in James Brown Scott, The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907: A Series of Lectures delivered before the Johns Hopkins University in the Year 1908 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1909), vol. 1: 179; Stowell, “Convention Relative to the Opening of Hostilities,” 55; see also A. Pearce Higgins, The Hague Peace Conferences and other International Conferences Concerning the Laws and Usages of War (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1909), 205. In this light, the comments of Fedor Fedorovich Martens [F. de Martens] on a state’s “right of intervention” are instructive: Traité de droit international, trans. Albert Leo (Paris: Librairie Marescq ainé, 1883–1887), vol. 1: 397–402.
Takahashi, International Law Applied to the Russo-Japanese War, 6; and John Westlake, “The Hague Conferences,” in Collected Papers of John Westlake on Public International Law (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1914), 540f.
Nagaoka, “La guerre Russo-Japonaise et le droit international,” 490f; and Seiji G. Hishida, The International Position of Japan as a Great Power (New York: Columbia University Press, 1905), 70f.
Leroux, Le droit international pendant la guerre maritime Russo-Japonaise, 194. Japanese diplomacy regarding Korean neutrality, first raised on January 16 with the Italian minister to Japan, is reprinted in NGM, vol. 47 (1904, part 1): 310–32.
NGM, vol. 51 (1904–05/Nichi-ro sensō, vol. 1): 95–127, 129–38; Smith [Birkenhead] and Sibley, International Law as Interpreted during the Russo-Japanese War, 112–16; Takahashi, International Law Applied to the Russo-Japanese War, 462–6; Jean-Marie de Lanessan, Les enseignements maritime de la guerre Russo-Japonaise (Paris: F. Alcan, 1905), 197f; and Foreign Relations of the United States (1904): 780–85. This series hereafter abbreviated FRUS.
Louis Livingston Seaman, From Tokio through Manchuria with the Japanese (New York: Appleton & Co., 1905), 174–93; NGM, vol. 52 (1904–05/Nichi-ro sensō, vol. 2): 102–81; Takahashi, International Law Applied to the Russo-Japanese War, 437–44; and FRUS (1904): 139f.
Ibid., 425; and Takahashi, International Law Applied to the Russo-Japanese War, 442–4. See also Hanai Takuzō, “Nichi-Ro sensō to kokusaihō no hatten,” Kokusaihō zasshi 4.3 (11/1905): 1–13.
Ariga, La guerre Russo-Japonaise, 505–8; and Takahashi, International Law Applied to the Russo-Japanese War, 441f. A rare supporter of Japan was Edwin Maxey, “The Russo-Japanese War and International Law,” American Law Review 39 (1905): 344.
Hull, The Two Hague Conferences, 149f; Scott, The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 (1909), vol. 1: 621–5; and Scott, The Hague Conventions and Declarations of 1899 and 1907 (1918), 210.
Albert de Lapradelle, “La nouvelle thèse du refus de charbon aux belligérants dans les eaux neutres,” RGDIP 11 (1904): 531–64; Smith [Birkenhead] and Sibley, International Law as Interpreted during the Russo-Japanese War, 129f; Hershey, The International Law and Diplomacy of the Russo-Japanese War, 202f; Lawrence, War and Neutrality in the Far East, 2nd ed., 126–32; and Nagaoka, “Étude sur la guerre Russo-Japonaise,” 630.
William Edward Hall, A Treatise on International Law, 8th ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), 724–7; Lassa Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise, 3rd ed. (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1920), vol. 2: 453–6; and Howland, “Japanese Neutrality in the Nineteenth Century,” 18–21.
Elbert J. Benton, International law and Diplomacy of the Spanish-American War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1908), 190–4; and Resolutions of the Institute of International Law Dealing with the Law of Nations, ed. James Brown Scott (New York: Oxford University Press, 1916), 154f. See also Howland, “Japanese Neutrality in the Nineteenth Century.”
NGM, vol. 51 (1904–05/Nichi-ro sensō, vol. 1): 487–506; MacDonald to Lansdowne, November 17, 1904, in FO 46/634: [257]; and MacDonald to Lansdowne, November 15, 1904, in FO 46/635: [476–81]. See also Patrick Beillevaire, “Preparing for the Next War: French Diplomacy and the Russo-Japanese War,” in Rethinking the Russo-Japanese War, 1904–05, vol. 2, The Nichinan Papers, ed. John W. M. Chapman and Inaba Chiharu (Folkstone, UK: Global Oriental, 2007), 73–87; and Kajima, Nichi-Ro sensō, 195–218.
Lapradelle, “La nouvelle thèse du refus de charbon,” 537f (esp. 538n5); Hershey, The International Law and Diplomacy of the Russo-Japanese War, 197; Lawrence, War and Neutrality in the Far East, 2nd ed., 120–4; Smith [Birkenhead] and Sibley, International Law as Interpreted during the Russo-Japanese War, 459–63; T. Martens, “Extract from the Journal de Saint-Pétersbourg,” May 10, 1905, in FO 46/639: [115f], and Prime Minister Alfred Balfour, in “The Appropriation Bill,” Times (London), August 12, 1904, p. 5.
NGM, vol. 51 (1904–05/Nichi-ro sensō, vol. 1): 506–10, 518–34; Bunsen to Lansdowne, January 6, 1905, in FO 46/636: [86]; Lansdowne to Bertie, January 11, 1905, in FO 46/636: [160]; Lansdowne to MacDonald, January 11, 1905, in FO 46/636: [166]; MacDonald to Lansdowne, January 17, 1905, in FO 46/636: [183]; and Hershey, The International Law and Diplomacy of the Russo-Japanese War, 192–4. On the passage and demise of the Baltic Fleet, see Herwig Lorenz, Krieg im Gelben Meer: Der russisch-japanishe Krieg 1904–1905 (N.p., 2005), 104–46, 156–76; Toyama Saburō, Nichi-Ro kaisen shinshi (Tokyo: Tokyo shuppan, 1987), 205–24; J. N. Westwood, Russia against Japan, 1904–05 (London: Macmillan, 1986), 137–51; and Toyoda Yasushi, Nisshin-Nichi-Ro sensō [Nihon no taigai sensō: Meiji] (Tokyo: Bungeisha, 2009), 339–43, 360–3.
Deuxième Conférence Internationale de la Paix, Actes et documents (La Haye: Nijhoff, 1908), vol. 3: 460–63. See also The Hague International Peace Conferences, The Proceedings of the Hague Peace Conferences: Translations of the Official Texts, ed. Scott (1921) vol. 4: 463–6.
Hull, The Two Hague Conferences, 150–56; and Scott, The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 (1909), vol. 1: 634–44.
See Susumu Yamauchi, “Civilization and International Law in Japan during the Meiji Era (1868–1912),” Hitotsubashi Journal of Law and Politics 24 (1996): 1–25 (esp. 9–15). Yet Yamauchi curiously does not mention the Port Arthur massacre.
Thomas Erskine Holland, “International Law in the War Between Japan and China,” The United Service (August 1895): 109–113; and Takahashi Sakuye, “Applications of International Law during the Chino-Japanese War,” Transactions and Proceedings of the Japan Society of London 5 (1898–1901): 2f. For translations and originals of decrees issued by the governor of Taiwan, offering rewards for the heads of Japanese soldiers and officers and for the sinking of Japanese ships, see FO 233/119: [147–8].
The most thorough discussion is Inoue Haruki, Ryojun gyakusatsu jiken (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1995); an excellent review of the incident and its subsequent treatment is Stewart Lone, Japan’s First Modern War: Army and Society in the Conflict with China, 1894–95 (London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s, 1994), 142–63. See also Donald Keene, Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852–1912 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 491–6; Paine, The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, 207–22; Shiraha Yūzō, Nisshin-Nichiro sensō to hōritsugaku (Tokyo: Chūō daigaku shuppanbu, 2002), 120–90; Shirai Hisaya, Meiji kokka to Nisshin sensō (Tokyo: Shakai hyōronsha, 1997), 141–88; and Trumbull White, The War in the East: Japan, China, and Corea (N.p., 1895), 583–609.
Fukuzawa Yukichi, “Nisshin no sensō wa bunmei no sensō nari,” Jiji shinpō, July 29, 1894, repr. Fukuzawa Yukichi zenshū, vol. 14 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1961), 491f; and Uchimura Kanzō, “Justification of the Korean War,” in The Complete Works of Kanzō Uchimura, ed. Tajiro Yamamoto and Yoichi Muto (Tokyo: Kyobunkwan, 1972), vol. 5: 66–75. See also Hilary Conroy, The Japanese Seizure of Korea, 1868–1910 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1960), 127–39; and Oka Yoshitake, “Nisshin sensō to yōji ni okeru taigai ishiki,” Kokka gakkai zasshi 68 (12/1954): 101–30 and (2/1955): 223–54.
John Westlake, Chapters on the Principles of International Law (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1894), xii.
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Howland, D. (2016). Mastering the International Laws of War. In: International Law and Japanese Sovereignty. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-56777-2_5
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