Three wartime textbooks of international law published and then reissued by Hersch Lauterpacht, James Brierly and Georges Scelle between 1940 and 1945 present a collective argument against the politics of war by analysing the design flaws of interwar international law. Though the criticism was not new, its repetition in textbooks during war highlights the strategic significance of using basic principles to defend the pacifistic function of international law when lawlessness reigned the global imaginary. The textbook genre became an unexpected, critical field which enlivened when its first readers found the past of international law in their present, conditioned by crisis. There, against the scene of first reading and writing, the texts became counter texts which side-stepped diplomatic controversy to critically examine the reasons for the breakdown of order and remind internationalists about the continuity of law despite war, the political limits on legal function, and the tasks for their diligent, expert attention.

赫尔·劳特帕赫特（Hersch Lauterpacht），詹姆斯·布里埃里（James Brierly）和乔治·斯凯尔（Georges Scelle）在1940年至1945年之间出版并再版了三本战时国际法​​教科书，通过分析两次世界大战之间国际法的设计缺陷，提出了反对战争政治的集体论点。尽管批评不是新鲜事，但战争期间在教科书中的批评却再次凸显了当无法无天统治全球假想时使用基本原则捍卫国际法的和平主义功能的战略意义。教科书类型成为一个意想不到的，至关重要的领域，当它的第一批读者在危机的条件下发现了国际法的过去时，它就变得活跃起来。在那里，在第一次阅读和写作的背景下，