CODE, International. A code of interna tional law was published in 1910 by the Inter national Code Publishing Company of New York, having the unusual page arrangement of parallel statements in three languages — Eng lish, French and Italian. The author is Jerome Internoscia of Montreal, a member of the bar of the province of Quebec, Canada.
For the ideas and rules which the work con tains, Mr. Internoscia acknowledges his indebt edness to the laws, treaties and treatises that have been published in the three languages. By law he means "the highest type of law, the Law of Nations, the International Law, which includes in itself all the other laws of mankind." He believes that the principles of the present international law are faulty, because they de clare illegal "the doing of anything that tends to improve the municipal law of nations." He believes that international law, as it is, dis regards the fundamental principle of every sound law, namely, that there must be an au thority to judge who is right and who is wrong. It does so because of the mistaken idea that, to be independent, a state must have nobody to judge its actions, although it may have many neighbors• who for selfish ends deem themselves free to regard as wrong its good actions and, for that reason only, make war upon, and de stroy or annex it. To become what it should be, the author contends, international law must be remodeled after the type of a perfect munici pal law and attain the perfection of the law of nature. As in nature there is a supreme authority or fotce, so nations must have a supreme authority or force that will compel the ,different states to observe the law. The ques tion, therefore, which the author propounds and aims to answer in this work is whether nations can find • or create a supreme authority to en force international law. His answer is that they can.
The ideal of peace, he finds in the aspira tion toward a new organization of the Com munity of States, an organization in which all the controversies between state and state must, without exception, be solved by judicial means provided for that purpose—namely, an ade quate body of laws, magistrates to apply them, punishments for infringers and a regular, force sufficient to inflict the punishment that any state may incur.
About one-third of Mr. Internoscia's 'Code) contains innovations. First and most import ant of these is the abolition of war,. which is replaced by the forced execution of judgments and, therefore, by an International Procedure, which, while having a scientific basis, he deems complete and eminently practical.
The first part of this 'Code,' treating of public international law, fixes the rights that states must recognize, respect and even protect in man, and establishes to what extent every nation expects its own citizens to do their duty in order to secure peace and happiness for all. A very marked change in the field of inter national criminal' law is a crusade against capital punishment and against crime in gen eral. This 'Code' is opposed to capital punish ment, as it is to war, because these are nothing better than murder and manslaughter, permitted by some temporary law. Mr. Internoscia ar gues that no man can give •back life to a dead body, so no law can give to a person the right to take away the life of another.
This 'Code> does not suggest the creation of a worldwide empire, or a confederation of all nations, because, in that case, no nation would be free, and the central power would treat, not as belligerents but as rebels, the in habitants of any portion 'who might fight for freedom of action.
The second part of this is intended to solve all possible conflicts of the different laws, by fixing rules that are most reasonable and practicable. This part is divided into two books, the first for conflicts in civil law and the second for conflicts in commercial law. All questions of procedure and of jurisdiction— formalities, proof,judgment and executions— are treated in the third part of the This is the largest code ever written. Most interesting and fundamental is the author's pro posed system of courts of international juris diction. The novelty of their organization lies in the fact that they are adjuncts or offshoots of one great international tribunal. The judges of such courts are at the same time the clerks, under-secretaries, secretaries and counsels of the international representatives who will con stitute an international assembly, which will be the highest international legislature and court.