INTERNATIONAL LAW. The sys tem of rules which Christian states acknow ledge to be obligatory upon them in their re lations to each other and to each other's sub jects. It is the jus inter yentas, as distin guished from the jus gengium.
2. The scientific basis of these rules is to be found in natural law, or the doctrine of rights and of the state ; for nations, like smaller communities and individuals, have rights and correlative obligations, moral claims and duties. Hence it might seem as if the science consisted simply of deductions from certain fundamental propositions of natural right ; but this is far from being the case, for national intercourse is the most voluntary possible, and takes a shape widely different from a system of natural justice. It would be true to say that this science, like every department of moral science, can require nothing unjust; but, on the other hand, the actual law of nations contains many pro visions which imply a waiver of just rights ; and, in fact, a great part of the modern im provements in this code are due to the spirit of humanity controlling the spirit of justice, and leading the circle of Christian nations freely to abandon the position of rigorous right for the sake of mutual convenience or good will.
3. So much for the general foundation of international law. The particular sources are the jural and the moral. The jural ele ments are, first, the rights of states as such, deducible from the nature of the state and from its office of a protector to those who live under its law; second, those rights which the state shares with individuals, and in part with artificial persons, as the rights of pro party, contract, and reputation ; and, third, the rights which arise when it is wronged, as those of self-protection and redress. To these have been joined by some the rights of punishment and of conquest,—the latter, at least, without good reason; for there is and can be no naked right of conquest, irrespect ive of redress and self-protection. The moral elements are the duties of humanity, comity, and intercourse.
4. Various divisions of international law have been proposed, but none are of any great importance. One has been into natu ral and voluntary law, in which latter con ventional or treaty law and customary are embraced. Another, somewhat similar, sepa rates international rules into those which are deducible from general natural fits, those which are derived from the idea of estate, and those which grow out of simple compact. Whatever division be made, it is to be ob served that nations are voluntary, first, in de ciding the question what intercourse they will hold with each other ; second, that they are voluntary in defining their rights and obliga _ tions, moral claims and duties, although these have an objective existence beyond the con trol of the will of nations ; and, third, that when international law has arisen by the free assent of those who enter into certain arrangements, obedience to its provisions is as truly in accordance with natural law— which requires the observance of contracts— as if natural law had been intuitively dis ' cerned or revealed from heaven and no con sent had been necessary at the outset.
5. The aids in ascertaining what interna tional law is or has been, are derived from the sea-codes of medieval Europe, especially the Consolato del Mare ; from treaties, espe cially those in which a large part of Europe has had a share, like the Treaties of West phalia; from judicial decisions, state papers on controverted points, and tho treatises of text-writers. Among the latter, Grotius led the way in the seventeenth century, while Puffendorf, fifty years afterwards, from his having confounded the law of nature with that of nations, has sunk into deserved ob livion. In the next century, Cornelius van Bynkershoek, although the author of no con tinuous work embracing the whole of our science, ranks among its ablest expounders, through his treatises entitled, De Dominic Maris, De Foro Legatorum, and Qucestiones Juris Fublici. In the middle of the eigh teenth century, Vattel, a disciple of the Wol fian philosophy, published a clear but some what superficial treatise, which has had more than its due share of popularity down to the present day. Of the very numerous modern works we can only name that of Kliiber, in French and German (1819 and since), that of De Martens, which came to a fifth edition in 1855, and those of Wheaton (1855, 6th ed.) and of Heffter (1855, 3d ed.), which two last are the leading authorities,—the former for the English-speaking lands, the latter for the Germans. The literature of the science must be drawn from Von Ompteda and his conti nuator, Von Kamptz, or from the more re cent work of Von Mold (Erlangen, 1855-58), in which, also, an exposition of the history is included. The excellent works of Ward (Inquiry into the Foundation and History of the Law of Nations, etc.) and of Wheaton (History of the Law of Nations from the Earliest Times to the Treaty of Washington in 1842) are of the highest use to all who would study the science, as it ought to be studied, as the offshoot and index of a pro gressive Christian civilization.