At the time when the Syrian Civil War has re-ignited the interest of international lawyers for the study of Civil Wars, this article reviews the core issues and different doctrinal positions present in the international legal debates triggered by the Spanish Civil War. It pays particular attention to the contributions of the first two British judges at the International Court of Justice, A. D. McNair (1946-1955) and H. Lauterpacht (1955-1960) to these debates. Their writings can be seen as respectively representative of the two stages through which British international lawyers went in the international legal debates on the Spanish Civil War. Up to early 1938, British International lawyers adopted a characteristically apologetic approach to the policy undertaken by the British Government on the advice of the British Foreign Office. The second stage, from early 1938 to the end of the Spanish Civil War in March 1939, was in turn informed by a “practitioner's approach” to the analysis of the domestic cases brought before the British courts as a result of the hostilities. The article concludes with an analysis of the case for British “benevolent neutrality to the Nationalists” in the Spanish Civil War, reviewing the underlying motives which historians have highlighted as lurking behind the British-led non-intervention policy in the Spanish Civil War.

中文翻译：

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为了和平的普遍利益？英国国际律师与西班牙内战

当叙利亚内战重新激发国际律师对内战研究的兴趣时，本文回顾了西班牙内战引发的国际法律辩论中存在的核心问题和不同的理论立场。它特别注意国际法院的前两位英国法官AD McNair（1946-1955）和H. Lauterpacht（1955-1960）所作的贡献。他们的著作可以分别代表英国国际律师参加关于西班牙内战的国际法律辩论的两个阶段。直到1938年初，英国国际律师对英国政府根据英国外交部的建议采取的政策采取了典型的道歉方法。第二阶段，从1938年初到1939年3月西班牙内战结束，反过来又得到了“从业者的态度”，以分析敌对行动在英国法院提起的国内案件。本文以西班牙内战中英国“对民族主义者的仁慈中立”为例进行分析，并回顾了历史学家所强调的潜在动机，这些动机是潜藏在西班牙内战中由英国主导的不干预政策背后。