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The Codification Of International Law, James L. Brierly

Michigan Law Review

Any conclusion about the desirability or the practicability of codifying international law ought to be based on a clear idea of what the process would involve, and unfortunately "codification" is an ambiguous word. In the sense in which British and American lawyers use the word it relates to the form in which the law is presented. When we codify, we do not regard the task as one of improving the substance of the law, but as one of collecting the existing rules and stating them concisely and clearly. It is true that, even so, the work must involve some element …