INTERNATIONAL LAW, PUBLIC, the general term for the law governing the relations and intercourse of States inter se. The parties are States and not nations, so that the word "international" does not accurately define the scope of the subject. Nor do authors always confine themselves to its proper limitation. Thus the rules relating to nationality and naturalization, extradition, patents, trade marks, etc., which affect States on the one side and foreign persons on the other, are gen erally included among the subject-matter of international law. There is a special branch of international law, known as Private International Law (see INTERNATIONAL LAW, PRIVATE), which deals exclusively with the relations of persons belonging to differ ent States, in which States as such are not parties.
The term "international" was first used by Bentham, who ob served : "The word international, it must be acknowledged, is a new one; though, it is hoped, sufficiently analogous and intelligible. It is calculated to express in a more significant way the branch of law which goes commonly under the name of law of nations,' an ap pellation so uncharacteristic that, were it not for the force of custom, it would seem rather to refer to internal jurisprudence. The chancellor d'Aguesseau has already made, I find, a similar remark ; he says that what is commonly called droit des gens ought rather to be termed droit entre les gens." (Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.) But Franciscus and Vic toria had already in the 16th century used the Latin form jus inter genies.
There has been much controversy as to the aptness of the use of the word "law" in this connection. "Strictly speaking," ob served Lord Chief Justice Coleridge in his judgment on the Fran conia case (R. v. Keyn, 2, Ex. D. 63), "international law is an in exact expression, and it is apt to mislead if its inexactness is not kept in mind. Law implies a lawgiver and a tribunal capable of enforcing it and coercing its transgressors, but there is no common lawgiver to sovereign States, and no tribunal has the power to bind them by decrees or coerce them if they transgress. The law of nations is that collection of usages which civilized States have agreed to observe in their dealings with one another. What these usages are, whether a particular one has or has not been agreed to, must be matter of evidence. Treaties and acts of States are but evidence of the agreement of nations, and do not, in England at least, per se bind the tribunals. Neither certainly does a con sensus of jurists, but it is evidence of the agreement of nations on international points, and on such points, when they arise, the English courts give effect as part of English law to such agree ment." Sir James Stephen took a similar view.
This was declared by Lord Russell of Killowen to be. based upon Austin's definition, which was too narrow and relied too much on force as the governing idea. "If," he added, "the devel opment of law is historically considered it will be found to exclude that body of customary law which in early stages of society pre cedes law, which assumes definitely the character of positive com mand coupled with punitive sanctions. But even in societies in which machinery exists for the making of law in the Austinian sense, rules or customs grow up which are laws in a very real sense of the word, as for example the law merchant. Under later devel opments of arbitrary power, laws may be regarded as the command of a superior with a coercive power in Austin's sense : `Quod placuit principi, legis vigorem habet.' In stages later still, as gov ernment becomes more frankly democratic, resting broadly on the popular will, laws bear less and less the character of commands imposed by a coercive authority, and acquire more and more the character of customary law founded on consent. . . . I claim, then, that the aggregate of the rules to which nations have agreed to conform in their conduct towards one another are properly to be designated international law." (Address at Saratoga Springs [N.Y.] ; see Law Quarterly Review, p. 311, 1896.) This recalls Blackstone's definition : "The law of nations is a system of rules, deducible by natural reason, and established by universal consent among the civilized inhabitants of the world, in order to decide all disputes, to regulate all ceremonies and civilities, and to en sure the observance of justice and good faith in that intercourse which must frequently occur between two or more independent States, and the individuals belonging to each." (Commentaries on the Law of England, 4th ed., iv. 66.) The current English nar rower view owes its origin chiefly to the influence of John Austin, and the current broader one to that of Sir Henry Maine. The in creasing popularity of references to international arbitration (see ARBITRATION, INTERNATIONAL), the adoption of a large number of special treaties making such references compulsory in certain cases, the establishment of an increasing recourse to the court for the decision of difficulties between States created by The Hague "Convention for the pacific settlement of disputes between States" of 1899 (see PEACE), the adoption of fixed rules of law in the international conventions in 1899 and 1907 dealing with many of the most controversial questions of international usage, and the creation of the League of Nations and its Permanent Court of International Justice (q.v.), have so transformed the subject that if, as Lord Coleridge said, law implies a law-giver and a tribunal capable of enforcing it, these conditions are now, at any rate, partly fulfilled. We shall see below to what extent it may be nec essary to regard power of enforcement against transgressors as requisite to give international law the character of law properly so-called.
Austin's analysis of this vague subdivision led him to a more precise determination of the relationship of sanctions to law, viz., that a law properly so-called is a command and its sanction is the power to enforce obedience to it. Stated briefly, any other kind of law according to Austin is not positive law but merely called so by analogy. Applying this test to international law he concludes that the law obtaining between nations is not positive law; for every positive law is set by a given sovereign to a person or persons in a state of subjection to its author. The law ob taining between nations is only law set by general opinion with duties which are only enforced by moral sanction, by fear on the part of nations, or by fear on the part of a sovereign, of pro voking general hostility, and incurring its probable evils, in case they should violate maxims generally respected. (Province of Jurisprudence determined, 2nd ed., 1861, p. 177; Austin explains his view more fully at p. 127.) Sir H. Maine's somewhat indirect answer to Austin may now be taken as the view held at least by British theoretical writers. "Austin," he said, "has shown, though not without some straining of language, that the sanction is found everywhere, in positive law, civil and criminal. This is, in fact, the great feat which he performed, but some of his disciples seem to me to draw the inference from his language that men always obey rules from fear of punishment. As a matter of fact this is quite untrue, for the largest number of rules which men obey are obeyed uncon sciously, from a mere habit of mind. Men do sometimes obey rules for fear of the punishment which will be inflicted if they are violated, but compared with the mass of men in each com munity, this class is but small ; probably it is substantially con fined to what are called the criminal classes, and for one man who refrains from stealing or murdering because he fears the penalty there must be hundreds of thousands who refrain with out a thought on the subject." (International Law, p. 5o.) The view, however, that a law is not devoid of binding charac ter because there is no authority to enforce its observance hardly requires justification at the present day. The fact that any well established international usage is observed, and that States in variably endeavour to answer any reproach of departing from such usage by explanations showing that the incriminated act is justified by recognized rules of international law, is evidence of its binding character. As the late Prof. Rivier, one of the leading authorities on Roman law, as well as an international jurist of eminence, has expressed it : "The law of nations is positive law because States wish it to be so. They recognize its compulsory character and proclaim it. As they are their own legislators and make their common laws by express or tacit consent, they attest explicitly and implicitly their conviction that its principles are binding upon them, as judicial principles, as law. Innumerable public acts, affirmations, declarations and conventions are there to prove it. On the other hand, never in any published official act of the present age, verbal or written, has a State dared to declare that it did not consider itself bound by the law of nations and its principles." (Droit des gees, 1896, i. 22.) With this we may compare Savigny's words : "A community of judicial con science can be formed among nations like that which positive law creates in the bosom of one people. The foundations of that in tellectual community are constituted partly by a community of race, partly and especially, by a community of religious convic tions. Such is the basis of the law of nations which exists princi pally among European Christian States. . . . We are entitled to look upon this law as a positive law, although it is an incomplete judicial formation." (System des heutigen, romischen Rechts, 1840, 1., s. States, as Prof. Rivier says, have again and again solemnly declared their determination to abide by the prin ciples of international law. Witness the Declaration of Aix-la Chapelle of Nov. 15, 1818, in which the representatives of five Powers, Austria, France, Great Britain, Russia and Prussia, sol emnly stated that "the sovereigns in forming this august union, have regarded as its fundamental basis their unchangeable reso lution never to depart, either amongst themselves or in their re lations with other States, from the strictest observance of the prin ciples of the law of nations, principles which, in their application to a permanent state of peace, can alone effectively guarantee the independence of each government and the stability of the general association." In the negotiations for the Treaty of London con cerning the Black sea (Mar. 13, 1871), at which seven Powers were represented, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Great Brit ain, Italy, Russia and Turkey, a resolution on the sanctity of treaties was annexed to the first protocol, stating that the pleni potentiaries recognize that it is an essential principle of the law of nations that "no Power can liberate itself from the engage ments of a treaty, nor modify the stipulations thereof, unless with the consent of the contracting powers by means of an amicable arrangement." Even in 1908, when Austria-Hungary proceeded to the annexation of Bosnia-Hercegovina without obtaining the prior assent of the high contracting Powers, who under the Treaty of Berlin of 1878 had granted her temporary occupation of the annexed provinces, the protests of the Powers concerned were answered by Austria-Hungary declaring that she had done nothing contrary to the law of nations or affecting the sanctity of treaties, because the Powers had given their tacit consent to the practical transformation of her temporary into a permanent occupation.
The public opinion of the civilized world, in fact, plays in an ever-increasing degree the part of a sanctioning authority. With the growth of international intercourse and international inter dependence the danger of isolation or of discredit or even of "boycotting" becomes a matter of increasing importance in the conduct of States. The national press and periodical literature, with exceptions no doubt, are among the chief factors in the de velopment of this public opinion, but it is by no means dependent upon them. Personal intercourse among citizens of the same country, and between statesmen, politicians and citizens of differ ent countries has a still greater effect in the creation of the men tal attitude of nations towards each other. This exposes any de parture from recognized usage or any disregard for international obligations to such reprobation throughout the whole world, that, far from taking advantage of the absence of any coercive method of enforcing obedience to the principles of international law, States compete with each other in asserting their strict fidelity to such principles. And now successive diplomatic conferences have codified many of the chief branches of international usage, thus diminishing the possible cases in which States can take ad vantage of the uncertainty of the law and, by quibbling over its interpretation, escape from its obligations.
Wheaton, it is seen, regarded text-writers as witnesses of the usage of nations. He explains his meaning as follows : "Without wishing to exaggerate the importance of these writers, or to sub stitute in any case their authority for the principles of reason, it may be affirmed that they are generally impartial in their judg ment. They are witnesses of the sentiments and usages of civil ized nations, and the weight of their testimony increases every time that their authority is invoked by statesmen, and every year that passes without the rules laid down in their works being im pugned by the avowal of contrary principles." This distinguished writer's quasi-explanation of the sources of international law is extremely vague. He masses together cause and effect, private and public opinions, usage and exceptions. Oppenheim has en deavoured to give a more scientific explanation of the growth and development of international law, and objects to calling sources of international law what are mere factors influencing its growth:— ``. . . Custom and treaties," he observes, "are the two exclu sive sources of the law of nations. When writers on international law frequently enumerate other sources besides custom and trea ties, they confound the term 'source' with that of 'cause' by call ing sources of international law such factors as influence the grad ual growth of new rules of international law without, however, being the historical facts out of which these rules receive their legal force. Important factors of this kind are : Opinions of famous writers on international law, decisions of prize courts, arbitral awards, instructions issued by the different States for the guidance of their diplomatic and other organs, State papers con cerning foreign politics, certain municipal laws, decisions of mu nicipal courts. All these and other factors may influence the growth of international law either by creating usages which gradu ally turn into custom, or by inducing the members of the family of nations to conclude such treaties as stipulate legal rules for future international conduct.
"A factor of the special kind which also influences the growth of international law is the so-called comity (Comitas gentium, Convenance et courtoisie internationals, Staatenkunst). In their intercourse with one another States do observe not only legally binding rules and such rules as have the character of usages, but also rules of politeness, convenience and good-will. Such rules of international conduct are no rules of law, but of comity. The comity of nations is certainly not a source of international law, as it is distinctly the contrast to the law of nations. But there can be no doubt that many a rule which formerly was a rule of in ternational comity only is nowadays a rule of international law. And it is certainly to be expected that this development will go on in future also, and that thereby many a rule of present inter national comity will in future become one of International Law." (International Law, 1905, s. 19.) Precedents.—We prefer to regard international law as deriv ing the rules composing it from practically the same sources as domestic law, and to attribute to text-writers more or less the same value in its development as in that of the private law of nations. The same primary rules of conduct are appealed to be tween States as between individuals, and precedents play exactly the same part wherever human actions are concerned. In both cases what has been done before commends itself when the re sponsibility of taking steps pledging the future is concerned.
Statesmen on whom great responsibility impends, on whom the conduct of momentous negotiations has devolved, and who will have to render an account of their work to the sovereign or na tion they represent, preserve an argument in their own favour in departing as little as possible from any course taken in previous similar circumstances. Precedents, moreover, are arguments for acceptance by their adversaries or counter-negotiators. In fact, in diplomacy even more than in matters of domestic government precedents play a dominant part in the growth of usage. These precedents are often in themselves originally local usages, such as grew up in the intercourse of the Italian communities. Italy, in fact, served as a laboratory for early diplomatists and writers. It was in the intercourse of these active and ambitious States that grew up the very notion of a foreign diplomacy and the necessity of rules of conduct in this miniature Europe, with its perpetual antagonisms and jealousies, its balance of power, its idea of a State distinct from a nation and of a community of States elbow ing each other in their daily contact. It was there that grew up the institution of passports, the distinction between armed forces and civilians, international comity, and in fact the very notion that States have an interest in the observance of law and order among them. In the same way the active commercial intercourse in the Mediterranean led, in the common interest, to the develop ment of rules of the sea in time of peace, and later to others in time of war.
In the north of Europe, again, out of the active commercial in tercourse among the Baltic and North sea communities grew rules of the sea in the same common interest. It was the Thirty Years' War, with its revolting cruelty, which brought out the contrast between the more humane practice of war as an art in Italy and the mere bludgeonry which prevailed in the brutal struggle which disgraced the first half of the 17th century. The brutality of the
struggle turned thinkers' attention to the need of formulating rules for the protection in time of war of non-combatants and the inno cent subjects of absolute sovereigns, the treatment of the sick and wounded, the prohibition of wanton pillage and the other horrors which shocked the awakening conscience of northern Europe. It was the starting-point of the age of text-books.
The scientific mind of Leibnitz (1646-1716) revolted against this theoretical and doctrinaire tendency of Pufendorf and other writers, who were following with feeble tread in the giant foot steps of Grotius. He saw that the practice of nations was taking a course dictated by the current moral standards of civilized society, and that the philosophizing of the text-book writers was leading them away from that actual practice which they should use as data for their conclusions. Natural science, moreover, had taught him the risk of theorizing on imperfect data, and while writing a history of Brunswick it occurred to him that treaties and diplomatic documents generally were the substances and tests of the publicist's laboratory. His Codex juris gentium diplomaticus (1693-170o) gave a more precise direction to speculations on the subject.
The next great writer of authority united all the qualities of a practical lawyer and jurist. This was Bynkershoek (1673– 1743). He was the first writer on international law who dealt with public maritime law as a matter demanding special treat ment and involving a set of principles not called into action in territorial warfare. A magistrate administering the law in a great commercial country, whose interests were on or across the high seas rather than within the narrow European limits of Holland, Bynkershoek, like Leibnitz, searched for his data in the actual practice of nations in their intercourse with one another. He applied his clear, legally trained mind to deriving principles from practice instead of endeavouring to build up a practice on abstract principles. It was he who first generalized the different isolated usages which had grown up at different spots in northern Europe in the interest of maritime defence, and evolved from practice the principle that dominion seawards was limited to the extent to which it was possible to enforce it (cannon-shot range), a principle which not only created the legal institution of terri torial waters, but has since been imported into other branches of international law, and has indirectly influenced the suppression of fictitious blockades and fictitious occupations of territory.
A contemporary of Bynkershoek was Christian de Wolff (1679– 1754), a philosopher, mathematician, theologian, lawyer and dis ciple of Leibnitz. Wolff's great work on the Institutions of the Law of Nature and Nations is a learned and accurate treatise drawn from all the well-known sources of knowledge, and, just as Grotius based his demonstrations on the then imperfect knowl edge of public events of his time, Wolff based his on the more accurate sources of information which had grown up under the influence of Leibnitz, and created a connected system out of the scattered fragments available. But his book was written in Latin at a period when scholarship had declined, and its influence was only felt after Vattel (1714-67) wrote his Droit des gens, ou principes de la loi naturelle appliquees a la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains ( 1758). His book had all the charm, although Vattel was a Neufchatelois, of the French writers of his time, and he it was who popularized the study of international law. His book was based chiefly on the work of Wolff ; in it he gave what was best amongst his predecessors without attempt ing to add anything original of his own. It became the handbook of statesmen and jurists, and has never ceased to be quoted by them down to the present day.
But the opinions of jurists in international law can have little more than the value of criticism and co-ordination. They have seldom served to make law, though they have the weight of all statements made by those who have made a special study of any branch of law, as to what they had gathered to be the existing practice at the time when they wrote, or as to the trend which they showed that practice might be taking. Great lawyers and writers like those we have mentioned, and such as Lord Mans field, Sir William Scott, Chief Justice Marshall and others, have done the work of classifying facts, deducing conclusions from them and connecting rules with psychological and ethical motives, and have thus sent a current of higher intelligence through the subject which has raised it to its present methodical form. Still international law remained a wide field for controversy. Authors were agreed on general principles, but when these general prin ciples were applied in practice, the shortcomings of unwritten usage of ten caused as much difficulty as that which the appeal to principles was intended to overcome.
Hague and London Conferences.—What may be called the first enactment of rules of international law was the Declaration of Paris of 1856 (q.v.), but the great work of codification, or rather of reducing into writing the rules which had been floating as an unwritten law in the conscience of Europe, was undertaken by The Hague Conferences, which may be said to be and to have created an entirely new factor in the domain of international law. Two of the conventions adopted in 1899 completed work which had already been commenced long before, viz., those on the usages of war and on the adaptation of the Geneva Convention to naval war. The third established methods for the pacific settlement of international difficulties, including the formation of The Hague Court of Arbitration. Recourse to the latter was purely optional, but the other two conventions have been absorbed into the na tional law of the ratifying countries, and thus have also the domestic sanction States give to their own laws. The work of the Conference of 1907 was of a much wider and more ex haustive character than that of 1899. It comprised, besides re vised conventions on the matters dealt with in 1899, new con ventions on the following subjects : Opening of hostilities; position in naval war of enemy's merchant ships at beginning of hostilities; conversion of merchant vessels into warships; rights and duties of neutral States in naval war ; the laying of automatic submarine contact mines; the bombardment of undefended places by naval forces; treatment of fishing vessels, postal correspondence and capture generally in maritime war; and recovery by force of con tract debts. It also adopted a convention for the creation of an International Prize Court of Appeal, which led to the calling of a fresh conference on prize law. This conference sat in London. from Dec. 4, 1908, to Feb. 26, 1909, and was confined to repre sentatives of the following countries : Great Britain, France, Ger many, United States of America, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Japan, Holland and Spain. It adopted a series of rules on naval warfare relating to blockade in time of war ; contraband of war; unneutral service ; destruction of neutral prizes ; transfer to neutral flag; enemy character; convoy; and resistance to search and compensation.
Standard of Right Conduct.—Underlying the details of both the new international legislature and the new international judicature are certain principles which may some day have to be officially defined. These principles have necessarily fluctuated with the standard of morals of each period. With the contem porary development of the public conscience, they are under going changes and a betterment which it is not desirable to check by yet nailing them up as immutable articles of faith. Till quite recently it was usual to speak of the common standard of right conduct prevailing throughout the Christian world, a standard to which responsible statesmen tried to adjust their direction of the affairs of State. The admission of Japan into the councils of the Great Powers has introduced a non-Christian element whose standard of conduct was not identical with nor based upon Christian morals. Turkey, though admitted in 1856 to European councils, remained rather the occasion of their deliberations than a deliberating party. Her new position as a constitutional State, with a code of morals at any rate in some essentials distinct from that of Christian peoples, will add a further new non-Christian element into the moral foundations of international conduct. The influence of western Europe, however, in both Japan and Turkey, has hitherto in all external development been paramount. Japan, after examining all the existing systems, has even adopted the best she found in Western morals, and in her schools inculcates Christian ethics as a subject per se without reference to Divine revelation or authority. Turkey, too, has the advantage of pos sessing a code of morals which produces so high a standard of right conduct in private life that very little in the way of moral lessons will have to be learned by the Ottomans from Western civilization. As regards practice, it is unreasonable to expect that the high estimate of the moral standard of west European civiliza tion, which is cherished by those who profess its principles, should be accepted by other peoples with unqualified assent.
The very notion of the "right of conquest," and that the vic torious are entitled to an indemnity without reference to any question of right and wrong or of justice and injustice, shows that there are principles in actual practice which lie outside and have no analogy in the principles of private law. In the partition of Africa, native States have been treated as non-existent except as local bodies. They have been annexed to European States with out reference to their will or consent. Treaties have indeed been made with them, but they have rather been regarded as evidence of prior occupation than as involving any question of native right. The test in the distinction between civilized and uncivilized States which is regarded as warranting exclusion from enjoyment of the right to consideration as independent States, and admission to the community of the civilized world, is in practice the pos session of a regular government sufficient to ensure to Europeans who settle among them safety of life and property. Every coun try, in principle, possessing such a government has prima facie the rank of a State and is entitled to treatment as a civilized community. Treaties made with it for the purpose of extra-terri torial jurisdiction are intended merely to take into account a difference of judicial institutions but are not supposed to detract otherwise from the possession of such equality and independence. This principle has no analogy in private morals, and has been, slight as it is, more honoured in the breach than the observance. If indifference to native right has provoked reaction, it has been on the part rather of philanthropists than of statesmen. Their movement for the protection of African aborigines has, however, resulted in at least one great international charter for the pre vention of the further degradation of African aborigines, viz., the General Act of Brussels of 1885. A vigorous outcry has also been raised against the methods of the Government of the Congo State. But the agitation ought not to be confined to this part of Central Africa. Other Governments are also in fault. In fact, the contact of the European with Central Africa has, throughout, with few exceptions, been one of barbarous practice quite incon sistent with the principles which Christian missionaries have been sent to teach the African native.
European enterprise in Asia has had still less justification. The action taken for the repression of the "Boxer" movement in China, like previous European incursions, had no essential characteristic distinguishing it from the incursions of the Northmen. The Japanese took part in the "Boxer" expedition, and the example of respect for native right and of orderly self-restraint they set has been universally acknowledged. But the lesson is one of greater significance than one of comparative ethics. The rise of the power of Japan and her obvious determination to constitute herself the champion of the races of eastern Asia has widened the scope of international law, and we may now regard China as henceforth under the protection of the same principles as Euro pean States.
2. Recognition of each other's independence.
3. Recognition of equality, one with another, of all inde pendent States.
As regards the first of these principles see STATE. From the principle of independence it follows that every State has a right to change its form of government and to enjoy the free exercise of its internal energies. This is subject only to the limitation that in the exercise of this right other States or their subjects shall not be molested or otherwise suffer. The equality of all inde pendent States entitles them to respect by other States of all the forms of ceremonial and to the same treatment by others, where their interests are identical, whether they are strong or weak. This principle has often been violated, but it is, nevertheless, acknowledged wherever possible, as in diplomatic conferences re lating to all matters of an economic, hygienic, industrial or social character. Even at the Conference of Algeciras, though the Powers immediately concerned from a political point of view were only Great Britain, France, Germany and Spain, the f ol lowing were also represented as having economic interests in Morocco, viz., Austria-Hungary, Italy, Russia, Belgium, Holland, Portugal and Sweden.
Ships on the high sea being regarded as detached portions of the national territory, there is also the derived principle of the freedom of the high sea, of the independence and equality upon it of the ships of all nations subject only to due respect being paid to the independence and equality of all others and to such conventional restrictions as States may impose upon themselves (see TERRITORIAL WATERS). This principle is re-enunciated in the preamble to the Convention of 1907 on the laying of automatic submarine contact mines (see PEACE CONFERENCES).
The Hague Conventions are based on these principles, to which there is a tendency to add another, viz., the right to arbitration in certain cases. This principle is set out more or less tentatively, it is true, but it is being completed by separate treaties of com pulsory arbitration in connection with the cases referred to. It is enunciated in the following article of the Convention of 1907 for the pacific settlement of international disputes : "In questions of a legal nature, and especially in the interpreta tion or application of international conventions, arbitration is recognized by the contracting Powers as the most effective, and, at the same time, the most equitable means of arranging disputes which diplomacy has failed to settle. Consequently, it is desirable that, in disputes regarding the above-mentioned questions, the contracting Powers should, if need be, have recourse to arbitra tion, in so far as circumstances permit." (Art. 28.) The principle of arbitration has also been adopted in reference to the recovery of contract debts under the following article of the "Convention respecting the limitation of the employment of force for the recovery of contract debts" : "The contracting Powers agree not to have recourse to armed force for the recovery of contract debts claimed from the Gov ernment of one country by the Government of another country as being due to its subjects or citizens. This undertaking is, how ever, not applicable when the debtor State refuses or neglects to reply to an offer of arbitration, or, after accepting the offer, ren ders the settlement of the compromis impossible, or, after the arbitration, fails to comply with the award." (Art. I.) The codification of international law itself, begun at The Hague and London Conferences, is an admission of the binding char acter of the primary principles set out above.
One of the chief tendencies of contemporary reform is also to restrict the effect of fictions and reduce rights to the limits of their practical application. Between two alternatives, the one to assert rights which cannot possibly be maintained by force such as claims to dominion over portions of the high sea (see HIGH SEA, WATERS, TERRITORIAL), "paper blockades" (see BLOCKADE) and fictitious occupations of territory (see OCCUPATION), and the other to require actual physical assertion, a medium course is growing up, viz., that of recognizing potential assertion, i.e., assertion limited to physical possibilities. With the aid of the Institute of International Law, the International Law Association and other reforming agencies (see PEACE), expert opinion in these matters is becoming homogeneous throughout the civilized world, and the ground is being prepared for a clearer understanding of these fundamental principles by the statesmen and State officials who have to apply them in practice.
The outstanding developments in international law since the World War are so distinctive that it has been considered ex pedient to deal with them under separate headings, rather than to attempt to present them in any one general article. The at tention of the student is especially drawn to the following articles: ARBITRATION, INTERNATIONAL ; BLOCKADE ; CONTRABAND; CON VOY ; COVENANT; INLAND WATER TRANSPORT; LABOUR LAWS; LEAGUE OF NATIONS ; MANDATE ; MIGRATION ; MINORITIES ; NEU TRALITY; PERMANENT COURT OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE; PRIZE and PRIZE COURTS AND PRIZE LAW ; SANCTIONS AND GUARANTEES ; TREATIES ; VISIT AND SEARCH; WAR, LAWS OF; WASHINGTON