James Brown Scott ment of a tribunal to settle the differ ences arising between states was taken. Congress, by article IX, was empowered to create a panel of thirty-nine judges, from which by a process of elimination the disputing states selected seven or nine to decide the controversy. This is the identical change which took place in the Roman system and which was brought about by The Hague treaty of 1899. The final stage in development was reached when the Supreme Court of the United States was vested by section 2 of article III of the Constitution of 1789 with jurisdiction over "controver sies between two or more states." The tribunal was no longer composed of judges selected by the parties, but con sisted of a permanent body chosen without regard to the wishes of the litigants or the nature of the case. The contractual element in the consti tution of the court and in the submission of the parties to it disappeared, as it did in the later Roman period, and as it is bound to disappear when the final step is taken in the development of an international judiciary. Mr. Scott also points out that the operations of the Supreme Court are conclusive proof that it is practical and efficient for a tribunal to decide inter state controversies without a political superior to enforce its mandates. By what process, he asks, can a state of the American Union be compelled to submit to a decree of the Supreme Court? What branch of the federal government is delegated with the authority to exe cute a judgment against a state? If a state should decline to abide by a deci sion of the Supreme Court, there is no constitutional power to coerce it. The submission of a controversy between states to' a permanent body of judges is made compulsory by the organic law,
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but obedience to a decision is voluntary. After a century of successful experience by the United States of compulsory submission of interstate disputes to an established court unsupported by a superior authority to enforce its deci sions, Mr. Scott very pertinently claims that the absence of an "international sheriff" to compel obedience is not a valid argument against compulsory arbi tration or against the establishment of an international court of arbitral jus tice, and he logically concludes that, since this type of judicial settlement has been found to be sufficient in the rela tions between the states composing the United States, there is every reason to suppose that it would be equally so in the community of nations. Mr. Scott thus shows, in a way which carries conviction, that there exists a complete analogy in the development of the Roman court of justice, of an inter state court in the United States, and of an international court, even to the ab sence of a political superior empowered to enforce judicial decrees, and that in view of past experience compulsory international arbitration is not only practicable but is the natural develop ment which will take place in conjunction with the institution of a world court with general jurisdiction. Convinced that the evolution of an international judicial system is bound to follow the law of development dis closed by the histories of Rome and of the United States, Mr. Scott is directing his efforts and the resources at his command to persuade governments to take the final step which will place the decisions of an international tribunal of justice on as high a plane as those of the highest national courts, clothing them with an authority as declarations of law, which will not only bind the liti gants but all civilized states as well,
