movement in which we are engaged, and who are ready to cooperate with it; men who believe in preparedness but not precipitancy; who believe in the increase of our Army and Navy, but only to such an extent as shall enable our country to defend itself against insult or invasion -certainly not for the purpose of aggression; men who believe, with the renowned Senator Sumner, that armament begets suspicion; suspicion begets fear; fear begets hatred, and hatred begets

murder; men who believe that this nation was founded by Almighty God as an asylum for the oppressed of the world, as the home of true patriotism-a patriotism not founded upon creed or blood but inspired by love of humanity and manifested in service to country. We unite in striving for the progress of an institution designed to beget confidence: that confidence which shall inspire coöperation, and that coöperation which is at the foundation of civilization.

A MILITARIST DELUSION. Certainly war gives many appearances of beauty to the people's lives, and men with mean small souls become heroes. And those who would willingly have robbed their neighbours of pence in their daily commercial life now sacrifice home and their lives freely. But all this virtue which militarists consider as a good result of war is only temporary. The hopes that class distinctions which are. broken down in the battle front will remain broken down when the economic results of the war debts arise in commercial activities are destined to failure. The strain of living after the war will cause the class war to go unprecedented lengths when the war is over and the national enemies disappear. But all the moral wounds made by the war will not easily be healed.-Social Democratien (Swedish).

W

HEREAS the municipal law of civilized nations recognizes and protects the right of life, the right to liberty, to which

the Declaration of Independence of the United States adds the right to the pursuit of happiness, the right to legal equality, the right to property and the right to the enjoyment of the aforesaid rights, creating a duty on the part of the citizens or subjects of each nation to observe them, and that whereas these fundamental rights, thus universally recognized, are familiar to the peoples of all civilized countries, and

Whereas these fundamental rights can be stated in terms of international law and can be aplied to the relations of the members of the society of nations one with another, just as they have been applied in the relations of the citizens or subjects of the State forming the society of nations, and

RIGHTS BEFORE THE LAW.

Whereas these fundamental rights of national jurisprudence, namely, the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to the pursuit of happiness, the right to equality before the law, the right to property and the right to the observance thereof are, stated in terms of international law, the right of the nation to exist and to protect and to conserve its existence; the right of independence and the freedom to develop itself without in terference or control from other nations, the right to equality in law and before law, the right to territory within definite boundaries and to exclusive jurisdiction therein, and the right to the observance of these fundamental rights;

Therefore the American Institute of

International Law unanimously adopts at its first session, held in the city of Washington in the United States of America on the 6th day of January, 1916, in connection with and under the auspices of the second pan-American Scientific Congress, the following five articles, together with the commentary thereon, to be known as the Declaration of the Rights of Nations.

SPECIFIC RIGHTS

1. Every nation has the right to exist and to protect and to conserve its existence, but this right neither implies the right nor justifies the act of the State to protect itself or to conserve its existence by the commission of unlawful acts against innocent and unoffending States.

This right is and is to be understood in the sense in which the right to life is understood in national law, according to which it is unlawful for a human being to take human life unless it be necessary so to do in self-defence against an unlawful attack threatening the life of the party unlawfully attacked.

In the Chinese exclusion case (reported in 130 U. S. Reports, pp. 591-606) decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1888 it was said that:

"To preserve its independence and give security against foreign aggression and encroachment is the highest duty of every nation, and to attain these ends nearly all other considerations are to be subordinated. It matters not in what form such aggression and encroachment come, whether from the foreign nation acting in its national character or from vast hordes of its people crowding in upon us. The Government, possessing the powers which are to be exercised

for protection and security, is clothed with authority to determine the occasion on which the powers shall be called forth; and its determination so far as the subjects affected are concerned is necessarily conclusive upon all its departments and officers."

REGINA VS. DUDLEY.

The rights of a State to exist and to protect and to conserve its existence is to be understood in the sense in which the right of an individual to his life was defined, interpreted and applied in terms applicable alike to nations and individuals in the well-known English case of Regina vs. Dudley (reported in 15 Cox's Criminal Cases, p. 624; 14 Queen's Bench Division p. 273) decided by the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Jus

tice in 1884, to the effect that it was unlawful for shipwrecked sailors to take the life of one of their number in order to preserve their own lives, because it was unlawful according to the common law of England for an English subject to take human life unless to defend him

self against an unlawful attack of the assailant threatening the life of the party unlawfully attacked.

NO INTERFERENCE.

Every nation has the right to independence in the sense that it has a right to the pursuit of happiness and is free to develop itself without interference or control from other States, provided that in so doing it does not interfere with or violate the rights of other States.

Every nation is in law and before the law the equal of every other State composing the society of nations, and all States have the right to claim and according to the Declaration of Independence of the United States to assume among the Powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them.

The right to equality is to be understood in the sense in which it was deGined in the following passage from the

decision of the great English Admiralty Judge Sir William Scott, later Lord Stowell, in the case of the Louis (reported in 2 Dodson's Reports, pp. 210, 243-44), decided in 1817:

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES.

"The principles of public law are generally recognized as fundamental. One is the perfect equality and entire independence of all distinct States. Relative magnitude creates no distinction of right; relative imbecility, whether permanent or casual, gives no additional right to the more powerful neighbor; and any advantage seized upon that ground is mere usurpation.

lic law which it mainly concerns the "This is the great foundation of pubpeace of mankind, both in their politic and private capacities, to preserve inviolate. The second is that all nations being equal, all have an equal right to the uninterrupted use of the unappropriated parts of the ocean for their navigation.

"In places where no local authority exists, where the subjects of all States and independence, no one State, or any meet upon a footing of entire equality of its subjects, has a right to assume or exercise authority over the subjects of another."

The right of equality is also to be understood in the sense in which it was stated and illustrated by John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who said in deciding the case of the Antelope, in 1825 (reported in 10 Wheaton's Reports, pp. 66122):

"In this commerce thus sanctioned by universal assent every nation had an equal right to engage. How is this right to be lost? Each may renounce it for its own people; but can this renunciation affect others? No principle of general law is more universally acknowledged than the perfect equality of nations. Russia and Geneva have equal rights. It results from this equality that no one can rightfully impose a rule on another.

Each legislates for itself, but its legislation can operate on itself alone.

"A right then which is vested in all, by the consent of all, can be divested only by consent; and this [slave] trade, in which all have participated, must remain lawful to those who cannot be induced to relinquish it. As no nation can prescribe a rule for others, none can make a law of nations; and this traffic remains lawful to those whose Governments have not forbidden it."

MR. ROOT'S DECLARATION.

The right of equality is further to be understood in the sense in which it was

expressed and illustrated by Elihu Root in the following passage from the address which he delivered in his capacity of Secretary of State of the United States in the presence of the official delegates of the twenty-one American republics accredited to the third PanAmerican conference held at Rio de Janeiro on July 31, 1906:

'We wish for no victories but those of peace; for no territory except our own; for no sovereignty except the sovWe deem the ereignty over ourselves. independence and equal rights of the smallest and weakest member of the family of nations entitled to as much respect as those of the greatest empire, and we deem the observance of that respect the chief guaranty of the weak against the oppression of the strong.

"We neither claim nor desire any rights or privileges or powers that we do not freely concede to every American republic. We wish to increase our prosperity, to expand our trade, to grow in wealth, in wisdom and in spirit, but our conception of the true way to accomplish this is not to pull down others and profit by their ruin, but to help all friends to a common prosperity and a common growth, that we may all become greater and stronger together."

JURISDICTION OVER TERRITORY. Every nation has the right to territory within defined boundaries and to

exercise exclusive jurisdiction over its territory and all persons whether native or foreign found therein.

This right is to be understood in the sense in which it was stated by Chief Justice Marshall in the following passage of his judgment in the case of the Schooner Exchange (reported in 7 Cranch's Reports, pp. 116, 136-137), decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in the year 1812:

Any

"The jurisdiction of the nation, within its own territory, is necessarily exclusive and absolute; it is susceptible of no limitation not imposed by itself. restriction upon it, deriving validity from an external source, would imply a diminution of its sovereignty, to the ex

tent of the restriction and an investment of that sovereignty, to the same extent, in that power, which could impose such restriction. All exceptions therefore to the full and complete power of a nation. within its own territories must be traced up to the consent of the nation itself. They can flow from no other legitimate

source.

"This consent may be either express or implied. In the latter case it is less. determinate, exposed more to the uncertainties of construction; but if understood, not less obligatory. The world being composed of distinct sovereignties, possessing equal rights and equal independence, whose mutual benefit is promoted by intercourse with each other and by an interchange of those good offices which humanity demands and its wants require, all sovreignties have consented to a relaxation in practice in cases under certain peculiar circumstances of that absolute and complete jurisdiction within their respective territories which sovereignty confers.

CIVILIZED OBLIGATIONS.

"This consent may in some instances be tested by common usage and by common opinion growing out of that usage. A nation would justly be considered as violating its faith, although that faith

might not be expressly plighted, which should suddenly and without previous notice exercise its territorial powers and in a manner not consonant to the usages and obligations of the civilized world." 5. Every nation entitled to a right by the law of nations is entitled to have that right respected and protected by all other nations, for right and duty are correlative and the right of one is the duty of all to observe.

"This right is to be understood in the sense in which it was stated in the following passage from the judgment of Chief Justice Waite in the case of U. S. vs. Arjona (reported in 120 U. S. Reports, pp. 479, 487), decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1886, holding that as each nation had

by international law the exclusive right to fix its standard of money, it was the duty of the United States as a member of the society of nations to protect the Colombia, from forgery: money of a foreign country, in this case

"But if the United States can require this of another, that other may require it of them, because international obligations are of necessity reciprocal in their nature. The right, if it exists at all, is given by the law of nations, and what is law for one is, under the same circumstances, law for the other. A right secured by the law of nations to a nation, or its people, is one the United States, as the representatives of this nation, are bound to protect."