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INTRODUCTION

WILS.INT.L

(1).

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1. Public international law is the body of generally accepted principles governing relations among states.1

International law is a growth and is growing. It early became evident that if states were to exist in proximity there must be some standards which should regulate their conduct toward one another. The Egyptian states recognized this in ancient times and made treaties with their neighbors. Practice and theory contributed to the establishment of principles. These principles were from time to time added to, expanded, and otherwise modified. Writers attempted to find a basis for certain rules of state action in the laws of nature, in divine law, in Roman law, and elsewhere. Each additional sanction made international law more potent. As Professor Moore

1 Other definitions are as follows:

International law, as understood among civilized nations, may be defined as consisting of those rules of conduct which reason deduces, as consonant to justice, from the nature of the society existing (3)

WILS. INT.L.

well says: "It is thus apparent that from the beginning the sejence in question denoted something more than the positive legislation of independent states, and the term 'international law,' which has in recent times so generally superseded the earlier titles, serves to emphasize this fact. It denotes a body of obligations which is, in a sense, independent of and superior to such legislation.” 2

A recognition of the principles of international law is regarded as fundamental to the existence of a state in the mod

ern sense.

In 1796 Justice Wilson said: "When the United States declared their independence, they were bound to receive the law of nations, in its modern state of purity and refinement.” 3

In 1824 an act of the United States Congress in regard to land definitely provided for a court trial "to settle and determine the question of the validity of title according to the law of nations, the stipulations of any treaty," etc. Referring to

among independent nations, with such definitions and modifications as may be established by general consent. Wheat. Int. Law, D, 23.

The aggregate of the rules which Christian states acknowledge as obligatory in their relations to each other, and to each other's subjects. The rules, also, which they unite, as in treaties, to impose on their subjects, respectively, for the treatment of one another, are included here, as being in the end rules of action for the states themselves. Woolsey, Int. Law (6th Ed.) 4.

The rules of conduct regulating the intercourse of states. 1 Halleck, Int. Law, 41.

International law is the collection of recognized facts and principles which unite different states into a juridical and humanitarian association, and which, in addition, assures to the citizens of the several states common protection in the enjoyment of the general rights pertaining to them as human beings. Bluntschli, Droit International, art. 1.

International law consists in certain rules of conduct which modern civilized states regard as being binding on them in their relations with one another, with a force comparable in nature and degree to that binding the conscientious person to obey the laws of his country, and which they also regard as being enforceable by ap propriate means in case of infringement. Hall, Int. Law (5th Ed.) 1. 21 Moore, 2.

3 Ware, Adm. of Jones, v. Hylton et al., 3 Dall. 199, 281, 1 L Ed. 568.

44 Stat. 53, c. 173, § 2.

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