This Opinion for the justification of their acts. may be done sometimes in the manner in which Pilate appeased his conscience, but, however that may be, it is a plain acknowledgment that Justice is expected to be observed in the intercourse of States, in the Society of Societies, as it is a constituent element of Society itself. The civilized Nations of all ages recognized the Moral Law as binding upon themselves in their internal relations. There are historical facts which indicate that the observance of the principles of this law, in external as well as internal relations (however imperfectly realized) were not unknown to Greece and Rome, the oldest of. civilized Nations on whose institutions modern European Laws are modelled. Cicero, in his great work on the commonwealth, maintains "that God has given to all men conscience and intellect and that, where these exist, a law exists of which all men are common subjects," and Plato repudiates the idea that any Society could flourish which did not respect the rights of other Societies. * A State must be regarded with respect to its rights and duties, and to the consequences of its relations with other Bodies-politic, from two different points of view, viz., de jure and de facto. On the one hand, a State must be regarded as a * PHILLIMORE. Chap. 3, §§ 17-27. Common Internat. Law. Vol. I. Edit. 1879. The same rules of morality, which hold together men and families and which form families into commonwealths, also link together these commonwealths, as members of the great Society of mankind. Commonwealths, as well as private men, are liable to injury and capable of benefit from each other; it is therefore their interest as well as their duty, to reverence, to practise and to enforce those rules of justice, which control and restrain injury, which regulate and augment benefit, which, even in their present imperfect observance, preserve civilized States in a tolerable condition of security from wrong and which, if they could be generally obeyed, would establish and permanently maintain the wellbeing of the universal commonwealths of the human race. Sir JAS, MACKINTOSH, Discourse on the Law of Nature and Nations. International moral person, as being an aggregate of self-conscious agents, if we are to comprehend the standard principles of its moral obligations. On the other hand, it is necessary, in order to avoid ambiguity in our conclusions, to bear in mind the difference which de facto exists in the nature of the respective rights and duties of these two subjects of the Moral Law, viz., the individual man in his social relation to his fellow-creatures and the societies of moral beings, called States, in their present mutual conditions; from which it results, that certain prerogatives and exceptional rights are attributed to States which could not be possessed by individuals. Reason therefore, which is the exponent of Conscience, through Common Sense, and as such a distinct source of International Law, guides the application of the principles of the Moral Law of Nature to the rights and duties of States, by following the International Spirit of Law, (§§ 4 and 14). * $19. As we have seen in the preceding parational Jurispru- graphs, the nature, necessities and interest of dence, Diplomacy. States give rise to international concerns, which establish international claims or rights with their corresponding duties and obligations; hence comes International Law. There exists, however, in the great Society of States no legislative power and therefore no written code of International Law, but there exist more or less generally acknowledged rules of reciprocity of conduct, in peace and war. Such rules have been sanctioned, either by written agreements concluded between * PHILLIMORE. Vol. I. 1879. Preface, page VII, and Chap. IV, page 30. Vol. III. 1873, page 878. G. F. DE MARTENS. Précis du Droit des Gens. Edit. 1858. Note of Ch. Vergé, §4, page 41. KLUBER, Droit des Gens Moderne de l'Europe. Edit. Ott. 1861, §37, page 58. VATTEL. Edit. Pradier Fodéré. 1863. Preface of Vattel, page 47, and Prelim. §6. sovereign States, and called Treaties or Conventions, and forming the Conventional Law, which has direct binding force for the States under contract and serves as precedent in many cases, or they have been sanctioned by custom or usage of long standing among Nations, voluntarily admitted as the Customary Law. These two elements constitute what may be called the Positive Law of Nations. But as this Law, hedged in by the narrow limits of special and isolated conventions and tacitly admitted customs, could not supply all the wants of international intercourse, in the manifold conditions of peace and war, it is supplemented by a third element. This may be called the Necessary Law of Nations, and serves for all those cases for which no provision is made, either by treaty or custom. This third element, necessary to complete, through International Jurisprudence (§20), the rules, essential for the intercourse of civilized nations, necessary to cement the loose stones of the Positive Law of Nations, composed of customs and conventions and stray facts of historical precedents, into the solid international structure that constitutes the stronghold of social progress and civilization, is the Law of Conscience which is the law of Justice. (§7). These three legal elements, viz., the Written Law, Customs and Justice, form, in their conbination, what is called INTERNATIONAL LAW (jus inter gentes). What constitutes the science called International Jurisprudence (§20) is the knowledge and application of the Conventional and the Customary Laws of Nations, in all conditions of international intercourse, in peace and war, sup * VATTEL. Droit des Gens. Prelim. §§ 6-9. G. F. DE MARTENS. Précis du Droit des Gens. Edit. 1858. Note of Ch. Vergé, §4, p. 41. International Legislation sup tional Jurispru dence. $20. plemented and commented upon, in conformity with the precepts of the Natural Moral Law, that is, according to Justice founded on Common Sense, by the authority and impartial judgment of able and experienced writers. The Juris-consultus of International Law, when accredited by the Government of his State, through special diploma or letter of credit, as their agent in the intercourse with another State, is called a Diplomatist and his profession as such Diplomacy, which is the art of conducting international affairs to satisfactory results. $20. International Legislation is not possible, plied by Interna- for want of a general International pact or covenant, based on the constitutional principle that the individual interest of each State should be subordinate to the general interest of the community of Nations. However, this absence of an International Jus Statutarium did not prevent the development, de facto, of International Rules. These rules actually constitute Law (jus) by virtue of the purity of their origin, by the advantages accruing from their existence to the moral progress of Societies, which are the important subjects, and by the immensity of the interests involved in moral intercourse between all human beings. Laws (leges) enacted by legislation, are necessary to indicate and to secure, by sanctions and penalties, the performance of what is right. But laws could not create moral obligations which did not previously exist in the human conscience. Where there are no laws, there it is still our duty to do what is right. * It is obvious that the want of International Legislation and the peculiar nature of Interna * JOSEPH HAVEN. Moral Philosophy, page 24. . tional Law, caused by the unsettled character of its Spirit of Law (§ 14), necessarily extend the sphere of International Jurisprudence, which, whilst expounding the meagre text of the positive elements of treaties and customs, must needs supply,to some extent, this want, by applying the necessary element of Justice, and thus establishing a sort of Judicatory Legislation, in order to arrive at a general and practicable system of International Corpus Juris. This constitutes International Jurisprudence a special science, embracing a vaster field than Civil Jurisprudence with its rich and well defined sources. But as it is of equal interest to all civilized nations to have the conditions of their mutual intercourse clearly brought to the knowledge of all, in order to make those rules respected and accepted as a common guide for all, the materials, necessary for the building up of an established International Jurisprudence, are slowly but continually contributed by all civilized nations, through the development of the International Spirit of Law. The difference between Legislation, in the ordinary sense, and the rules put forward by International Jurisprudence consists in this, that the latter, having no authority but that of a few established maxims, cannot enforce its rules, but simply proposes its doctrines to human Conscience and Common Sense, and advises their acceptance, on the strength of their intrinsic truth, justice and utility. "Mais précisement parce qu'il n'existe pour le droit entre nations, ni législateur, ni juge, il importe au plus haut degré: 1o. De déter miner et de faire reconnaitre ces droits aussi clairement, aussi géné ralement que possible, par toutes les voies susceptibles de supplier à l'absence d'une législation écrite. 20. De faire pénétrer, de répandre dans l'opinion publique et dans les Gouvernements Souverains le sentiment du respect de ces droits, la ferme résolution de les observer de son propre mouvement et avec fidélité à l'égard des autres, autant que les |