ABSTRACT
Nations as well as individuals are entitled to justice when, as corporate bodies, they contend unsuccessfully for survival through war. Edmund Burke states that it was "a first principle in the law of nations" that in war it must be assumed that each nation conceives it has justice on its side; therefore, everything before the beginning of hostilities and after the fighting ceases must be forgotten in the restoration of justice. In August 1791, Burke had said of the legality of intervention: "By the law of nations, when any country is divided, the other powers are free to take which side they please. For this consult a very republican writer, Vattel." Burke assumed the two traditional conceptions of the law of nations as part of his philosophy of history and politics, and he applied them to the great international conflicts brought on by the American and French revolutions.
