Landa: The Alien Problem and its Remedy. Hackett: Reminiscences of the Geneva Tribunal of Arbitration. Phillipson: The International Law and Custom of Ancient Greece and Rome.. 565 Wehberg: Die Abkommen der Haager Friedenskonferenzen, der Londoner Seekriegskonferenz nebst Genfer Konvention; Sind die Ansprüche der Gebrüder Mannesmann nach Treu und Glauben in vollem Umfange zu rechtfertigen?; Die internationale Friedensbewegung; Internationale Schieds- gerichtsbarkeit; Ein internationaler Gerichtshof für Privatklagen; Das Vol- kerrecht und das italienische Staatsversicherungsmonopol; Kommentar zu dem Haager "Abkommen betreffend die friedliche Erledigung internationaler Nys: Une clause des traités de 1814 et de 1839 "Anvers, Port de Commerce".. 778 Bouvé: Exclusion and Expulsion of Aliens in the United States.. Paullin: Diplomatic Negotiations of American Naval Officers. Charmes: Les Questions actuelles de Politique étrangère en Europe. Gribowski: Das Staatsrecht des Russischen reiches.. SUPPLEMENT IMPORTANT TEXTS OF AN INTERNATIONAL CHARACTER THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW is supplied to all members of during the year for which the dues are paid. (Members residing in foreign countries The annual subscription to non-members of the Society is five dollars per annum THE DEVELOPMENT AND FORMATION OF INTER NATIONAL LAW * I. LAW AND ITS PHILOSOPHIC ASPECT "Law in general," says Montesquieu, "is human reason so far as it controls all the people of the earth, and the political and civil laws of each nation can only be considered as individual cases in which this human reason is applied." Reason was held by the Romans to constitute one of the fundamental elements of law. Cicero announced the existence of "a veritable law, true reason (recta ratio), in conformity with nature, universal, immutable and eternal, the commands of which constitute a call to duty and the prohibitions of which avert evil." It is at present unnecessary to consider what influence the Stoic, Academic and Epicurean doctrines had on Roman jurisprudence, and it would be risky to support as absolutely final any view which might be expressed on the subject. During the last phases of the Republic there had already come to exist in the world's capital a fusion of the different schools of philosophy; and traces of the Platonic teachings constantly appear in the expression of the great orator's lofty thought. However that may be, with the passing centuries, jurists extolled the importance of human reason and lauded its noble and fruitful effects. Francois de Vitoria was one of the most famous representatives of the science of law in the sixteenth century, and according to him, reason was human intelligence, and at the same time freedom of will. In 1563 Ferdinand Vasquez Menchaca, a Spanish lawyer of equal fame, spread the doctrine that natural law was nothing but true reason (recta ratio), an inborn quality of the human race. He who is known as the father of the law of nations, Hugo Grotius, wrote as follows: * Translated by courtesy of Mr. Clement L. Bouvé, of the Bar of the District of Columbia. Natural law consists of certain principles of true reason, which teach us that an act is either morally honest or dishonest according to its fitness or necessary unfitness in so far as it applies to a state of nature founded on reason and social relations, and that consequently God, the creator of all nature, requires or prohibits the commission of such an act. Barbeyrac, the translator and annotator of the work of Grotius, cited. in connection with this subject, the words of Philo of Alexandria : True reason is a veritable law in itself, a law both incorruptible and eternal, not inscribed by the hand of this or that mortal on documents or inanimate columns, but blazoned upon an immortal intelligence by the hand of immortal nature. According to the doctrine of Grotius, natural law orders or prohibits the commission of acts obligatory or unlawful of themselves and by virtue of their own essence. But this natural law is of so immutable a nature that God himself is powerless to change it. Regarding law in general based upon the social relations of the human race, the famous historian is of the opinion that it exists apart from a divine will, and that it would be bound to develop even in the absence of God or in the absence of any divine solicitude for human affairs. Rolin-Jaequemyns most successfully interpreted this last idea which had been the cause of great difference of opinion between commentators; he was of the opinion that it expressed the meaning that the instinct of sociability and the existence of reason in mankind are facts, proof of which is independent of the existence of a supreme being. II. POSITIVE LAW This lofty thought is an off-shoot of the philosophy of law, and the philosophy of law does not consist of a collection of useless and contradictory speculations. It is real; it is useful; it constitutes itself a scientific study, the object of which is to discover fundamental principles. Only, side by side with the determination of principles. of juridical rules there exists a limitless array of examples and of facts, which ever since the beginning of humanity show that the relations among men, their daily contact and their every action have been controlled by rules which have grown out of custom or resulted |