[Footnote 201: _Ex parte Boussmaker_ (1806), 13 Vesey Jun. 71.] It is asserted that, in consequence of article 23 (_h_) of the Hague Regulations concerning land warfare enacting the injunction "to declare extinguished, suspended, or unenforceable in a Court of Law the rights and rights of action of the nationals of the adverse party," Great Britain and the United States are compelled to abolish their rule that enemy subjects may not sue. But the interpretation of article 23 (_h_) is controversial, Great Britain and the United States of America--in contradistinction to Germany and France--maintaining that the article has nothing to do with their Municipal Law but concerns the conduct of armies in occupied enemy territory.[202] [Footnote 202: It is impossible here to discuss the details of this controversy which the third Peace Conference must settle. See above, vol. I. § 554, No. 10; Politis in _R.G._ XVIII. (1911), pp. 249-259, and the literature there quoted; Kohler in _Z.V._ V. (1911), pp. 384-393; Holland in _The Law Quarterly Review_, XXVIII. (1912), pp. 94-98; Charteris in _The Juridical Review_, XXIII. (1911), pp. 307-323; Oppenheim, _Die Zukunft des Völkerrechts_ (1911), pp. 30-32.] However this may be, it must be especially observed that, according to British and American law, claims arising out of contracts concluded before the war do not become extinguished through the outbreak of war, but are only suspended during war, and the Statute of Limitations does not, according to American[203] practice at any rate, run during war. [Footnote 203: _Hanger_ v. _Abbot_ (1867), 6 Wallace, 532. The point is not settled in English law, for the _obiter dictum_ in _De Wahl_ v. _Browne_ (1856), 25 L.J. (N.S.) Ex. 343, "It may be that the effect would ultimately be to bar the action by reason of the Statute of Limitations is no answer...", is not decisive, although Anson, _Principles of the English Law of Contract_ (11th ed. 1906), p. 122, and other writers accept it as decisive.] [Sidenote: Intercourse, especially Trading, between Subjects of Belligerents.] § 101. Following Bynkershoek,[204] all British and American writers and cases, and also some French[205] and German[206] writers assert the existence of a rule of International Law that all intercourse, and especially trading, is _ipso facto_ by the outbreak of war prohibited between the subjects of the belligerents, unless it is permitted under the customs of war, as, for instance, ransom bills, or is allowed under special licences, and that all contracts concluded between the subjects of the belligerents before the outbreak of war become extinct or suspended. On the other hand, most German, French, and Italian writers deny the existence of such a rule, but assert the existence of another according to which belligerents are empowered to prohibit by special orders all trade between their own and enemy subjects.