This
international relation is the foundation of the right of
equilibrium, or of the "balance of power," among all the states that
are in active contiguity to each other.
The right to go to war is constituted by any overt act of injury.
This includes any arbitrary retaliation or act of reprisal
(retorsio) as a satisfaction taken by one people for an offence
committed by another, without any attempt being made to obtain
reparation in a peaceful way. Such an act of retaliation would be
similar in kind to an outbreak of hostilities without a previous
declaration of war. For if there is to be any right at all during
the state of war, something analogous to a contract must be assumed,
involving acceptance on the side of the declaration on the other,
and amounting to the fact that they both will to seek their right in
this way.
57. Right during War.
The determination of what constitutes right in war, is the most
difficult problem of the right of nations and international law. It is
very difficult even to form a conception of such a right, or to
think of any law in this lawless state without falling into a
contradiction. Inter arma silent leges.* It must then be just the
right to carry on war according to such principles as render it always
still possible to pass out of that natural condition of the states
in their external relations to each other, and to enter into a
condition of right.
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