The Future of International Law. more recently, international conferences anil congresses, the Institute of International Law, arbitral tribunals, prize courts, and courts of law generally, have all tended to keep it in harmony with advancing civiliza tion and to extend its doctrines that they may meet as fully as may be the exigencies which arise from the increasing complexity of international relations. But, on the other hand, there has been no corresponding development in the obligatory character of International Law as such, or in its administration by those to whom the immediate guidance of the affairs of State is confided; as affecting international rela tions its rules are still observed from the standpoint of convenience or of present advantage, rather than from that of abstract justice, and as yet have no sanction other than -that of the compelling or avenging power of the nation that holds itself injured or threatened with injury by the breach of them. The doctrines of International Law, the work of jurists and other learned men, are, in the main, in harmony with the twentieth century civilization, but the administration of them in what we might term th.e political relations between the nations is an anachron ism, is of an age of barbarism. In this re spect, the situation is much the same as if our present highly developed system of municipal law should be relegated to indi viduals for its enforcement. The problem is, then, not so much to de velop the scope of International Law, as to make its rules and doctrines a greater force in determining international relations,—to impress upon the minds of intelligent people the world over that these rules and doctrines are based on great principles of right, that unfair dealing, dishonesty, and injustice be tween nation and nation are no less shameful, no less to be deplored than they would be between man and man. When Grotius in his epoch-making work.
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De Jure Belli ac Pacis, laid the foundation and built a large part of the present struc ture of International Law, he made the major premise of his discussion the equality of nations before the law; adopting the Ro man doctrine of a Lex Naturae, the great Dutchman held that Nature has conferred certain rights and imposed corresponding obligations upon nations no less than upon men. Whether such rights and obligations are established by Nature, or whether they are to be deduced from the fact of association, or society, they exist; and as a failure to rec ognize and respect them in a society of indi viduals would mean degeneration and an archy, so in the association of nations it would mean confusion and the rule of brute force. Publicists, text-writers, and jurists have but with few exceptions followed the ex ample of Grotius in insisting upon the legal equality of nations, for on no other basis would it be possible to build up a logical body of doctrines consistent with definite ideas of right and justice. For a like reason, arbi tral tribunals have reasoned from the same premise, as have courts of law when ques tions involving international relations have come before them. This principle does not involve the idea that no nation shall be restricted in its free dom of action by others, or shall suffer any special disabilities. On the contrary, just as persons may, under wise and just provisions of the municipal law be placed under guard ianship for various purposes, so individual States may for the general good be limited in regard to certain powers, or -denied the right to exercise them at all, or be obliged to suffer interference in matters generally re garded as purely internal and, hence, not subject to interference from outside. But aside from these restrictions, which may justly be made by the Powers collec tively for the general good, and occasional
