Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 16.pdf/610

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
Editorial Department.

ling his extension of office rather than for prolonging it. Instead of giving the school boys his own views, Lord Curzon might have more usefully read to them the last chapter in Mill's Representative Government. —The Calcutta Wcekl Notes. To the Columbia Law Review for June, Professor James B. Scott, of the Columbia Law School, contributes the first of two articles on "International Law in Legal Education." After pointing out that the law of nations is " a part of the common law of England. and by the Constitution of the United States it is, therefore, a fundamental and integral part of our jurisprudence," and that it was settled by the case of the Paquete Habana v. United States (1899) 175 U. S. 677, "that In ternational Law is law; that it is part of our municipal law; that our courts take judicial notice of it as such," Professor Scott main tains that International Law is of value to the practitioner, and that, for him at least, it should be taught as law, in the law school. Finally Professor Scott asks: Should International Law be required for the law degree? That may depend in part upon the organization of the school. If a certain course is prescribed, all of which is required, it might well find a place alongside of Constitutional Law in such a course of study. It would round out the lawyer much in the same way as does Constitutional Law; it would make him a more intelligent citizen, a broader man, and therefore a bet ter practitioner. While, therefore, I hesi tate to state categorically that it should be prescribed in a law course, I do not think its inclusion would be improper or objection able. But if only the first year's work be prescribed, and the work of the second and third years be elective, as is the case in not a few of the larger and older schools, I would have no hesitation in saying that Interna tional Law should not be required. . . . Should International Law be required at the Bar examinations? To this question, much the same answer may be given as to

557

the query should International Law be re quired in a law course. If it be the purpose of the Bar examination to cover exhaustively the whole field of law, the answer might be in the affirmative, because a knowledge of any branch of the law would be of advantage to the practitioner. It would, therefore, not be improper to examine the applicant for admission in International Law, if such a course should commend itself to the exam ining board. It would be largely a question of expediency. If the examiners should de cide to make the examination cover all branches of the law, and of a very thorough nature, it could not be objectionable; for the State has an undoubted and constitutional right to regulate the terms upon which the door should be opened to applicants. Ex pediency rather than right would largely enter into their determination, and local con ditions might well be controlling. No one has a vested right to follow a public or quasi-pub lic calling or profession. The police power is very broad and far reaching in its extent; but it seems to me that it would be inexpedi ent to require International Law, and while thoroughness of preparation and the ques tion of usefulness in the citizen-lawyer might well justify an examination, nevertheless the weight of argument seems to me to forbid the requirement. . . . Expediency, experience and the nature of things would seem to indicate that Interna tional Law should well be studied and ac cepted for the degree of Bachelor of Law in law schools; but that it be not required for admission to the Bar. JAPAN, says The Law Times has two of her most eminent international jurists at the front with the troops in order to advise the generals. One of them, there is good reason to believe, is Dr. Sakaye Takahashi, Profes sor of International Law in the Imperial University of Tokio, who accompanied the Japanese fleet at the time of the war with China. His work as legal adviser furnished the material for the volume of Cases on In ternational Law during the Chino-Japanese