COMMENTARIES

UPON

INTERNATIONAL LAW.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

I. THE great community, the universal commonwealth of the world, comprehends a variety of individual members, manifesting their independent national existence through the medium of an organised government, and called by the name of States (a).

II. States in their corporate capacity, like the individuals which compose them, are (subject to certain limitations) free moral agents, capable of rights, and liable to obligations (b).

(a) "Communitas, quæ genus humanum aut populos complures inter se colligat "—" jura magnæ universitatis."-Grotius, de Jure Belli et Pacis, Proleg. 17, 23.

"Sociétés, qui forment les nations-membres principaux de ce grand corps qui renferme tous les hommes."-D'Aguesseau, 1. 444; Institution du Droit public, v., vi.

"Comme donc le genre humaine compose une société universelle divisée en diverses nations, qui ont leurs gouverneurs séparés," &c.— Domat, Traité des Lois, ch. 11, s. 39.

(b) Dig. lib. v. tit. i. 76: “(De inoff. testamento) populum eundem hoc tempore putari, qui abhinc centum annis fuisset, cum ex illis nemo nunc viveret."

Dig. lib. vii. tit. i. 56: "(De usufructu) an ususfructûs nomine actio municipibus dari debeat, quæsitum est, periculum enim esse videbatur

III. States, considered in their corporate character, are not improperly said to have internal and external relations (c).

IV. The internal relations of States are those which subsist between governments and their subjects in all matters relating to the public order of the State: the laws and principles which govern these internal relations form the subject of public jurisprudence, and the science of the publicistjus gentis publicum (d).

V. The internal relations of a State may, generally speaking, be varied or modified without the consent of other States-aliis inconsultis (e).

ne perpetuus fieret quia neque morte nec facile capitis diminutione periturus est. . . . sed tamen placuit dandam esse actionem: unde sequens dubitatio est quousque tuendi sunt municipes? et placuit centum annis tuendos esse municipes, quia is finis vitæ longævi hominis est.”

The expression municipes is identical with municipium.-Savigny, R. R. ii. 249.

Dig. lib. xlvi. tit. i. 22: "(De fidejuss.) hæreditas persona vice fungitur sicuti municipium, et curia, et societas."

Dig. lib. iii. tit. 4: "Quod cujuscunque universitatis nomine vel contra rem agatur."-Lib. i. s. 1, 2.

Cod. lib. ii. t. 29: "De jure reipublicæ: 30, de administratione rerumpublicarum; 31, de vendendis rebus civitatis; 32, de debitoribus civitatum."

Hobbes, with his usual perspicuity: "Quia civitates semel institutæ induunt proprietates hominum personales."-De Civ. c. 14, ss. 4, 5. Puffendorf adopted this view.-Ib. 3, 13.

Wolff, Præf.: "Enimvero cum gentes sint personæ morales ac ideo nonnisi subjecta certorum jurium et obligationum."

"Puis donc qu'une nation doit à sa manière à une autre nation ce qu'un homme doit à un autre homme," &c.-Vattel, Droit des Gens, liv. ii. ch. 1, s. 3; "Celle qui a tort pèche contre sa conscience.”—Ib. Prélim. s. 21.

(c) D'Aguesseau, ib.

Blume, Deutsches Privatrecht, s. 19: "Der Staat . . . als ideale Person wird er zum lebendigen Träger des gesammten öffentlichen Rechts.' Puchta, Cursus der Institutionen, s. 25, b. 73, 4.

(d) "The Law which belongeth unto each nation-the Law that concerneth the fellowship of all."-Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, b. i. s. 16.

"Publicum jus est quod ad statum rei Romanæ spectat, privatum quod ad singulorum utilitatem."- Ulpian, Dig. i. t. i. s. 2, De Just. et Jure. (e) "Hoc autem non est jus illud gentium proprie dictum: neque enim pertinet ad mutuam inter se societatem, sed ad cujusque populi tran

VI. But in the great community of the world, in the society of societies, States are placed in relations with each other, as individuals are with each other in the particular society to which they belong (f). These are the external

relations of States.

VII. As it is ordained by God that the individual man should attain to the full development of his faculties through his intercourse with other men, and that so a people should be formed (g), so it is divinely appointed that each individual society should reach that degree of perfection of which it is capable, through its intercourse with other societies.

To move, and live, and have its being in the great community of nations, is as much the normal condition of a single nation, as to live in a social state is the normal condition of a single man.

VIII. From the nature then of States, as from the nature of individuals, certain rights and obligations towards each other necessarily spring; these are defined and governed by certain laws (h).

IX. These are the laws which form the bond of justice between nations, "quæ societatis humanæ vinculum conti"nent" (?), and which are the subject of international juris

quillitatem: unde et ab uno populo aliis inconsultis mutari potuit," &c. —Grotius, de Jure Belli et Pacis, lib. xi. ch. 8, s. 2.

(f) "Ex hoc jure gentium introducta bella, discretæ gentes, regna condita, dominia distincta."-Dig. lib. i. tit. i. s. 5.

Jus Gentium, however, here as elsewhere in the Roman Law, means Natural Law.-Grot. de J. B. et P. lib. ii. c. viii. tit. i. 26.

Savigny, R. R. b. 1, App.

Taylor's Civil Law, 128.

(g) Puchta, Cursus der Institutionen, i. s. 25, b. 73.

"That Law which is of commerce between grand Societies, the Law of Nations and of Nations Christian.”—Hooker, ib.

(h) "Si nulla est communitas quæ sine jure conservari possit, quod memorabili latronum exemplo probabat Aristoteles; certe et illa quæ genus humanum aut populos complures inter se colliget, jure indiget." -Grot. Proleg. 23; Vattel, Prélim. s. 11.

(i) Grot. de Jure B. et P. 1. ii. 26.

prudence, and the science of the international lawyer-jus inter gentes (j).

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"The strength and virtue of that law (it has been well said) are such that no particular nation can lawfully preju"dice the same by any their several laws and ordinances, more than a man by his private resolutions the law of "the whole commonwealth or State wherein he liveth; for 66 as civil law, being the act of the whole body politic, doth "therefore overrule each several part of the same body, so "there is no reason that any one commonwealth of itself "should to the prejudice of another annihilate that where"upon the whole world hath agreed" (k).

X. To clothe with reality the abstract idea of justice, to secure by law within its own territories the maintenance of right against the aggression of the individual wrong-doer, is the primary object of a State, the great duty of each separate society.

To secure by law, throughout the world (7), the maintenance

(j) It is to the English civilian Zouch that we owe the introduction of this correct phrase, the forerunner of the terms International Law, now in general use.-See Von Ompteda, Litteratur des Völkerrechts, s. 64. D'Aguesseau afterwards adopted the phrase jus inter gentes.-Tom. i. 444, 521; Instit. du Droit public, vii. 2 partie, 1.

(k) Hooker, ib., b. 1, s. 10.

"Dicitur ergo humana lex quia proxime ab hominibus inventa et posita est. Dico autem proxime quia primordialiter omnis lex humana derivatur aliquo modo a lege eterna."-Suarez, Tractatus de Legibus et Deo legislatore, c. 3, p. 12 (ed. Lond. 1679).

"Omnes populi qui legibus et moribus reguntur, partim suo proprio, partim communi omnium hominum jure utuntur; nam quod quisque populus ipsi sibi jus constituit, id ipsius proprium civitatis est; vocaturque jus civile, quasi jus proprium ipsius civitatis. Quod vero naturalis ratio inter omnes homines constituit, id apud omnes peræque custoditur: vocaturque jus gentium, quasi quo jure omnes gentes utuntur."-Dig. lib. i. tit. i. s. 2.

(1) "Dieselbe Kraft, welche das Recht hervortreibt, bildet auch den Staat, ohne welchen das Recht nur ein unvollständiges Daseyn, eine prekäre Existenz hätte, ohne den der gemeine Wille, auf dem das Recht beruht, mehr ein Wunsch als ein wirklicher kräftiger Wille seyn würde."-Puchta, Instit. xi. 27.

"Dennoch ist seine erste und unabweisliche Aufgabe die Idee des