apply the law of their nationality or the law of their domicil. The writer sides against the dominant attitude of the jurists and condemns the doctrine of renvoi, but seeks at the same time to reconcile the opposing positions by showing that practical conditions rather than theory should determine the issue.

Ibid., No. 6, gives an exhaustive list of international treaties and of national laws bearing upon international relations for the years 1923-1924, and an equally exhaustive bibliography of international law systematically arranged according to subject matter.

11. REVUE DE DROIT INTERNATIONAL, DES SCIENCES DIPLOMATIQUES, POLITIQUES ET SOCIALES, No. 2, April-June, 1924

come.

This new review, now in its second year, must be accorded a hearty welLes "Affaires Domestiques" de l'art. 15, alinéa 8 du Pacte de la Société des Nations, by J. Paulus (pp. 123–138), surveys the circumstances which led to the insertion in the Covenant of the League of Nations of the clause providing that disputes, claimed by one of two contending states to involve a matter within its "domestic jurisdiction" and so found by the Council, should not be passed upon by the Council, and undertakes to analyze the scope of this "domestic jurisdiction." After examining the customary rules of international law in respect to sovereignty and independence, the writer concludes that it was these matters in general which the Powers intended to except from the obligations of the Covenant, but that the inclusion of a concrete case in, or its exclusion from, the general category was a relative question to be decided individually. Les Unions Internationales, by K. Neumeyer (pp. 139-150), discusses the effect of the outbreak of war upon the conventions creating international unions. Les conventions d'enquête et de conciliation entre les états du nord, by R. Erich (pp. 145-150), analyzes the draft convention drawn up in 1924 by Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden providing for the submission to a permanent commission of inquiry and mediation of all disputes arising between them for which resort to arbitration has not been provided. Le bombardement des villes ouvertes, by N. Sloutzki (pp. 151-169), completes a careful and detailed study, begun in the January-March number, of the relation of aërial warfare to unfortified towns and argues against the tendency to regard the civilian population of towns as combatants. W. van de Wetering concludes the list of leading articles with Les fonctions et les prérogatives des consuls. The appendix dealing with "Events and News" gives a useful survey of recent activities of the League of Nations.

12. REVUE DE DROIT INTERNATIONAL PRIVÉ, No. 3, 1924

La condition des Russes à l'étranger, spécialement en France, by M. J. Champcommunal (pp. 321-366), is a study of the remarkable situation that has been created by the presence in foreign countries of a large number of

domiciled Russians who have repudiated the de facto Bolshevik government of Russia and have endeavored, especially in countries which apply the law of nationality to the decision of controversies involving foreigners, to set up a sort of autonomous community within the foreign state. The writer distinguishes between the rules of private international law applicable to these Russians in states which have not recognized the Soviet government and the rules applicable in those which have recognized it. Problems both intricate and embarrassing have arisen, particularly in respect to the status of Russian corporations. While the recognition of the Soviet government by Great Britain and by France, which has taken place since the article was written, has changed the situation in those countries, the failure of the United States to take such action leaves the chief problems unsolved in this country. Incidentally the article contains much interesting information upon Soviet legislation with respect to the property of the refugees. La protection des appellations d'origine, by C. J. Leroy (pp. 367-371), is a brief note on the Anglo-Portuguese conventions of 1914-1916. A. Cohen contributes a note on the execution of foreign judgments in Turkey, while G. Forssius comments upon the new legislation adopted by the Scandinavian countries in respect to nationality, à propos of the Swedish law of May 23, 1924, the text of which is given.

13. ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR ÖFFENTLICHES RECHT, IV Band, 3-4 Heft, 1924 The entire number is given over to problems of international law. Staat und Völkerrecht, by H. Kelsen (pp. 207–222), is a chapter from a forthcoming treatise on General Public Law and discusses the relation of the traditional sovereignty of the individual state to the conception of law between states, the recognition of international law by municipal law, and the legal nature of international law. The discussion turns chiefly upon the question of the "primacy" of international law in respect to municipal law. Die Entstehungsgeschichte des Völkerbund-Paktes, by J. L. Kunz (pp. 223-271), is a detailed study of the history of the formulation of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Einige Bemerkungen über Staatsverträge, welche die Rechtslage der Individuen betreffen, by L. Strisower (pp. 272-298), raises a number of interesting questions with respect to the enforcement by municipal law of the provisions of treaties which affect the rights of individual persons. H. Sperl contributes a note on the treaty of June 21, 1923, between Germany and Austria defining the respective privileges to be accorded to the nationals of the other country; A. Verdross writes upon the confiscation of alien private property in time of peace; and G. Walker writes a brief essay upon political crimes and the right of asylum.

14. ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR VÖLKERRECHT, XIII Band, Heft 1, 1924 Völkerrecht und Staatsrecht, by L. Wittmayer (pp. 1-15), returns to the question widely discussed of late in Germany and Austria as to the place to

be assigned to international law in relation to constitutional law and undertakes a critical examination of the respective positions taken by the advocates and the opponents of the primacy of international law in respect to municipal law. Zur geschichtlichen Entwickelung des Optionsrechts, by W. Schoenborn (pp. 16-27), gives an interesting historical sketch of the so-called "right of option" in cases of transfer of territory and points out the set-back resulting from the growth of nationalism in the nineteenth century and the recent revival of the practice. Kritik der Gebietstheorien, by W. Heinrich (pp. 28-63), is a further discussion of the subject of a recent volume by the same writer on the Theory of State Jurisdiction. The leading authors are passed in review, chief attention being given in this first installment to Gerber, Fricker, Preuss, Rehm, Stammler and Jellinek. Die Entwicklung des Mandatsystems, by M. Bileski (pp. 77-102), analyzes the three classes of mandates and points out the legal relations between the territory and the mandatory state, as well as the significance of the mandate system for the development of international law. Briefer articles are by A. Lederle on the Legal Status of International Rivers under the Peace Treaties (pp. 64-76), by J. Spiropulos on the Right of Inland States to Fly a National Flag on the High Seas (pp. 103-111), by L. Buza on the Formation of the Czechoslovak State from the Standpoint of International Law (pp. 112–119), and by E. Jacobi on the Decisions of the Federal (German) Finance Court and International Law (pp. 120–124).

GROTIUS' DE JURE BELLI AC PACIS LIBRI TRES: THE WORK OF A LAWYER, STATESMAN AND THEOLOGIAN

By JAMES BROWN SCOTT

Honorary Editor-in-Chief

Huig de Groot, whom we know and venerate under the Latinized name of Hugo Grotius, is not a man with one book to his credit; but lawyers of all parts of the world are celebrating the three hundredth anniversary of one work of his, De Jure Belli ac Pacis Libri Tres. It appeared, it would seem, sometime in the month of March, 1625. For many years it was looked upon as a tour de force, as an extraordinary achievement for a politician in exile and a humanist to his finger-tips to have turned off within the space of a few months a treatise on a dry and admittedly technical subject, whose principles were ill-defined and, where known, were treated with scant respect.

His preparation for the work was not obvious. It is true that a pamphlet on The Freedom of the Seas had been published anonymously some years before, and it was known to those who took an interest in the matter that Grotius was its author; the connection, however, between the Mare Liberum of 1609 and the masterpiece of 1625 was not evident. It was a far cry from a pamphlet maintaining a special interest, to a treatise setting forth the rights and duties of nations in war and in peace. The knowing ones would have us believe that he began the composition of the great work in 1623, upon a suggestion of the famous Frenchman, Nicholas Peiresc, "the Maecenas of his Century & the Ornament of Provence," and a letter from Grotius himself, dated January 11, 1624, is invoked in support of Peiresc's intervention. Writing to his patron from Paris, Grotius said,

I am not idle, but am continuing the work on the Law of Nations (de Iure Gentium); and if it proves to be such as to deserve readers, posterity will have something which it will owe to you, who summoned me to this labor by your assistance and encouragement.

It may be well be, indeed, that Grotius was moved to compose the text of his Law of Nations because of the encouragement he received from Peiresc, but he would have been unable to please his patron by the production of a manuscript within two years on such a subject without elaborate preparation extending through a long period of years. The suggestion that Grotius should write something for publication may have come from Peiresc, but that it should be a treatise on the law of nations doubtless came from Grotius.

So matters stood until 1868, when another and an earlier manuscript of Grotius, not due this time to a literary patron, such as Peiresc, but to the Dutch East India Company, which had availed itself, it would appear, of