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International Law in Treaties of the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2017

Extract

Written agreements record much that has been accomplished toward setting up a specific law between states. If international law is still essentially a customary law, with the weaknesses characterizing any such law, it is also true that through a process of transmutation many customary rules have at length been given more or less precise form through their inclusion in conventions. The opinion has been expressed that only by such a process will this law escape from being “a junk heap of antiquated and perverted forms of justice that has been brought about by the supremacy of power.” It is of course possible to have treaty provisions which merely incorporate by reference, and perhaps emphasize without stating, the rules generally accepted by civilized states.

The reference may be to international law in terms, or to the established body of the law by plain implication. Even if an existing rule is referred to for the purpose of waiving rights under it as between the parties, there is ordinarily an implied recognition of what has become established through custom.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1937

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References

1 Smith, H. A. (ed.), Great Britain and the Law of Nations, II (1935), v.Google Scholar

2 Testimony of the late David, Jayne Hill, Hearings before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on H. J. 221, 69th Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington, 1926), p. 35 Google Scholar.

3 Sir Robert, Borden in 1919 referred to international law as merely a series of agreements between civilized states, while Mr. Lansing stated that in his country international law was a code and applied as suchGoogle Scholar. Miller, D. H., My Diary at the Conference of Paris (1924),XVI, 6263.Google Scholar

4 See note 83, infra.

5 On the utilization of what have previously been merely national rules as the bases for international law, there is the following statement by M. Theodore Ortolan, in Régles Internationala et Diplomatic de la Mer (2d ed., 1853), I, 202: “… it résulte que ces lois positives, particuliéres á chaque puissance, entrent ainsi elles-memes dans la sphere du droit international, et en font comme une partie int6grante, puisque l’observation de ces lois est commandée par les trait&s publics… .”

See the use made of this passage by Attorney General Cushing in his discussion of the condition of existence and means of proving nationality of merchant ships (VI Ops. Atty. Gen. 640).

6 As to the positivist character which the law had acquired in the nineteenth century, see the remarks of Sir Charles Russell in argument before the Bering Sea Arbitration Tribunal (Proceedings, XIII, 267–268), and his address before the American Bar Association in 1896 (Reports, 1896, pp. 253–285). Of value in a consideration of the theoretical aspects of the general subject not dealt with primarily in the present study are the discussions by Dean Roscoe Pound, “Philosophical Theory and International Law,” in Bibliotheca Visseriana I, 71–90 (1923), and Edward, Dumbauld, “The Place of Philosophy in International Law,” Univ. of Pa. Law Rev., Vol. 83 (1935), pp. 590606 Google Scholar.

7 Franklin to Dumas, in Francis Wharton (ed.), Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 63–64; referred to in T. W. Balch, “The United States and the Expansion of the Law Between Nations,” Univ. of Pa. Law Rev., Vol. 64 (1915), pp. 113–140.

8 Wilson, G. G., “The United States and International Law,” Proc. Amer. Soc. Int. Law, 1936, pp. 1426, at p. 19 Google Scholar.

9 Wilson, G.G., /oc. cit., pp. 16, 20 Google Scholar.

10 An opinion expressed by one witness before a committee of Congress (Hearings cited in note 2, supra, at p. 53), who conceded that “criticism may be made of some of our conduct” (italics inserted).

11 Reeves, J. S., “The Influence of the Law of Nature upon International Law in the United States,” this JOURNAL, Vol. 3 (1909), pp. 547561, at p. 560 Google Scholar; Charles, Warren, “The Mississippi River and the Treaty Clause of the Constitution,” Geo. Wash. Law Rev., Vol. 2 (1934), pp. 271302, at p. 280. On Nov. 17, 1782 Google Scholar, Jay wrote to Livingston, Robert R. concerning the Mississippi that “our right to its navigation was deducible from the laws of nature” Google Scholar ( Johnston, H. P., ed., The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, II, 406)Google Scholar.

12 8 Stat. 60, 64. Later illustrations are found in the treaties of 1854–6 with Peru, The Two Sicilies and Russia, respectively (11 Stat. 695; 11 Stat. 607; 10 Stat. 1105). See note 54, infra.

13 As is well known, this development has come as a sequel to the multilateral convention of three decades ago for the establishment of an international law commission (37 Stat. 1554).

14 There are some references to technical rules, as in the 1884 Convention on the Protection of Submarine Cables (24 Stat. 989), by Art. V of which the parties agree that their ships when laying cables shall conform to rules concerning signals.

15 Especially the two Hague Conventions for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, Art. XXIII of the first, and Art. XLIV of the second (32 Stat. 1779, 36 Stat. 2199).

16 An early illustration is found in the Treaty of 1819 with Spain (8 Stat. 252), Art. XI of which specifies “the principles of justice, the laws of nations, and the stipulations of the Treaty … of 27th October, 1795.” The statute for carrying the treaty into effect contained provisions concerning the commissioners’ acting in pursuance of Art. XI (3 Stat. 637–639). On the arbitration proceedings, see Moore, International Arbitrations, V, 4487–4518.

An important treaty in this group is that on Pan American Pecuniary Claims, signed Aug. 11, 1910 (38 Stat. 1799), discussed in Wilson, R. R., “A New American Venture in Obligatory Arbitration,” Southwestern Pol. and Soc. Sci. Quar., Vol. 9 (1928), pp. 115143, at pp. 128130. A variant from the formula usual in claims conventions is in the 1893 convention with Ecuador, by which the tribunal was to inquire whether a claimant had been guilty of such conduct as under the law of nations deprived him of protection (28 Stat. 1205)Google Scholar.

17 The preamble refers to sources: “… des principes du droit des gene, tell qu’ils Maul-tent des usages etablis entre nations eivilisees, des lois de l’humanite et des exigences de la conscience publique” (36 Stat. 2277, 2280).

18 See Art. 37, para. 3, of the Treaty of 1870 with Salvador (18 Stat., Pt. III, 747). The Spanish text of this treaty, which is also authentic, has as the last words in the paragraph referred to, “con violaci6n de las leyes y del derecho internacional.” Other treaties with similar provisions are the one with New Granada, 1846 (9 Stat. 881) and another (1850) treaty with Salvador (10 Stat. 891).

19 With Germany, 1923 (44 Stat. 2132); with Hungary, 1925 (44 Stat. 2441); with Estonia, 1925 (44 Stat. 2379); with El Salvador, 1926 (46 Stat. 2817); with Honduras, 1927 (45 Stat. 2618); with Latvia, 1928 (45 Stat. 2641); with Norway, 1928 (47 Stat. 2135); with Austria, 1928 (47 Stat. 1876); with Poland, 1931 (48 Stat. 1507), and Danzig, 1934 (48 Stat. 1680); with Finland, 1934 (Sess. Laws, 74th Cong., let Sees., Pt. II, p. 269). In each of these the reference to international law is in the first article. A mention of the right of aliens to sojourn and carry on business according to international law is in the preamble of the treaty of Oct. 28, 1931, with Turkey (47 Stat. 2432).

20 With Persia, 1928 (Executive Agreement Series No. 19, para. 1 and 2); with Saudi Arabia, 1933 (ibid., No. 53, Art. I); with Afghanistan, 1936 (ibid., No. 88). The first of these prescribes international law also as the standard in accordance with which nationals of the other party are to be treated.

21 See the second agreement mentioned in the preceding note; the required treatment of consular officers is to be based upon international usage. The agreement with Afghanistan prescribes treatment accorded by international law. Concerning the convention of 1853 with France (10 Stat. 992) with its mention of the privileges usually accorded to the office of consul, Attorney General Cushing wrote that “… by the Consular Convention, and by the law of nations without it, the consul represented the master, and his country … each nation does, by the general rule of public law, and more especially by this convention … concede to the consuls of the other a certain measure of discipline… .” (VIII Ops. Atty. Gen. 75). By the first article of the commercial treaty of 1903 with China (33 Stat. 2208) American diplomatic officers were to be accorded the privileges required by international usage. Half a century earlier an American Minister had made a distinction between the meaning of such a provision when used between Western states and the meaning in relation to non-Christian states, when he said, in part, in a statement quoted by the Attorney General in 1855: “The states of Christendom are bound together by treaties, which confer mutual rights and prescribe reciprocal obligations. They acknowledge the authority of certain maxims and usages, received among them by common consent, and called the law of nations; but which, not being fully acknowledged and observed by the Mohammedan or Pagan states … is, in fact, only the international law of Christendom (VII Ops. Atty. Gen. 497–499).

22 With Prussia, 1785 and 1799 (8 Stat. 84, 162), Art. XXIV in each case; with Mexico, 1848 (9 Stat. 922), Art. XXII, para. 3; with Italy, 1871 (17 Stat. 845), Art. XXI, para. 2.

23 Declaration accompanying the Treaty Relating to Insular Possessions in the Pacific, Dec. 13, 1921 (43 Stat. 1646), and reservation of the United States to this treaty.

24 With Bolivia, 1858 (12 Stat. 1003). Art. XXVI has to do with freedom of river traffic in accordance with the principles of international law.

25 Art. IV of agreement signed with Canada April 15, 1933, concerning questions of indemnity arising from theoperation of a smelter at Trail, Sess. Laws, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., Pt. II, p. 828.

26 Treaty of Peace, Dec. 10, 1898 (30 Stat. 1754), Art. I, para. 2.

27 Art. I, para. 8 of the instrument recording Ratification of the Plan of Evacuation, signed June 12, 1924 (44 Stat. 2193).

28 Forty-five have been listed. A recent illustration is in Art. III, para. 28 (a) of the Convention with Great Britain, signed Dec. 22, 1931 (47 Stat. 2122).

29 For one view concerning piracy as an offense under the law of nations, see the Harvard Research Draft Convention and Comment on Piracy, this JOURNAL, Supp., Vol. 28 (1932), pp. 759–760.

See also James, J. Lenoir, “Piracy Cases in the Supreme Court,” Jour. Amer. Inst. Crim. Law and Criminology, Vol. 25 (193435), pp. 532553, and the conclusion that “piracy is not sufficiently defined by international law so that offenders may be prosecuted by reference to that law alone… . Nor is piracy generally considered to be a crime against international law … international law enters into the matter by condemning the practice and permitting the states to exercise jurisdiction over piratical acts… . Only when there are lacunae or ambiguities in the municipal law is the court bound to look to international law for rules, or for evidence as to the intention of the framers of the statute.” Perhaps the suggestion as to lacunae or ambiguities would afford justification for retaining the wording in extradition treatiesGoogle Scholar.

30 5 Wheaton 153 (1820).

31 18 U. S. C. A., Tit. 18, Sec. 481. See also XIV Ops. Atty. Gen. 281, and Dickinson, E. D. , “Is the Crime of Piracy Obsolete?” Harv. Law Rev., Vol. 38 (192425), pp. 334360, at pp. 349350 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 There have been instances in which representatives of the United States have taken the position that arbitrary designation of insurgent vessels as “pirates” could not be condoned, and have insisted that the character of the vessels and of their acts should determine status piratical or non-piratical under the law of nations; the other states concerned were Haiti, Colombia and Venezuela. Frelinghuysen to Langston, Dec. 15, 1883, For. Rel. 1884, p. 297; Bayard to Scott, July 24, 1885, ibid., 1885, p. 920.

33 I Ops. Atty. Gen. 509. The particular provision was the twelve-year clause in Art. 28 of the Jay Treaty (8 Stat. 116, 129).

34 See notes 59, 84, 85, infra.

35 See the discussion referred to in note 16, supra.

36 Art. 9 (8 Stat. 252, 260): “The United States will cause satisfaction to be made for the injuries, if any, which, by process of law, shall be established to have been suffered by the Spanish officers, and individual Spanish inhabitants, by the late operations of the American army in Florida.”

37 V Ops. Atty. Gen. 333, 338, referred to with approval by Mr. Cushing in 1854 (VI ibid., 533). The argument was used to support the view that the provision as to “process of law” would allow the Secretary of the Treasury to exercise a revisory power over the judges in Florida.

38 This applies to a large group of bilateral agreements beginning with that of Feb. 6, 1928, with France (46 Stat. 2269).

39 Sess. Laws, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., Pt. II, pp. 763, 770.

40 The point was ably presented by Chandler, P. Anderson in Proc. Amer. Soc. Int. Law,1929, pp. 114115, 117118.Google Scholar

41 P. C. I. J., Series B, No. 4 (A/B No. 3), p. 24.

42 Note 23, supra.

43 Sess. Laws, 74th Cong., 2d Sess., Pt. II, pp. 945, 958.

44 Illustrated in the important claims arbitration agreement with Great Britain, Aug. 18, 1910 (37 Stat. 1625), in Art. VII, where equity is also mentioned as a basis.

45 As in the multilateral agreement of Feb. 9, 1920, concerning Spitzbergen (43 Stat. 1892), Annex 2 (9) (a).

Slightly different is the wording of Art. I, para. 4, and Art. II, para. 7, of the Boundary Agreement of April 11, 1908, with Great Britain. The question of nationality of islands in dispute was to be referred for decision under special rules provided “and under the recognized principles of international law not inconsistent therewith.” 35 Stat. 2003, 2004, 2007.

46 Illustrated in the preamble of Hague Convention XIII of 1907 (36 Stat. 2415) and in Art. VII of Hague Convention X of 1907 (36 Stat. 2371). The last mentioned is a reference to the “laws of war” rather than to international law generally.

47 Jean Brucy, Les trains et is reglementation du droit de is guerre (1917), pp. 225–226. Contrast the view of Germain Watrin, Le pacts de la Societe des Nations et la Constitution francaise (1932), p. 309.

48 VII Ops. Atty. Gen. 367 (1855). The occasion was a discussion of foreign enlistments in the United States, with particular reference to the convention of July 3, 1815, as continued by conventions of 1818 and 1827. Even earlier than this, the 23rd article of the Jay Treaty (8 Stat. 127) concerning hospitality in ports for ships of war had been “conceived to be declaratory of the usage of nations” (I Ops. Atty. Gen. 89).

49 47 Stat. 1989.

50 9 Stat. 922. Of the same general nature are provisions in the more elaborate Red Cross Convention of July 27, 1929 (47 Stat. 2074) with its Art. II providing that combatants falling into the hands of the enemy are prisoners of war and subject to international law, and Art. XVII, para. 6, setting forth that the requisition of sanitary transports shall be subject to international law. The purpose, at least in part, of the Convention on Prisoners of War, signed the same day, was to set up new rules rather than to declare prebxisting ones.

51 See Art. XXI of the 1795 treaty (8 Stat. 138, 150), referring to “justice, equity and the law of nations.” In the 1802 treaty (8 Stat. 198) excesses committed by individuals “contrary to the law of nations” are mentioned; by the second article, commissioners are to judge “according to the law of nations and the existing treaty, and with the impartiality justice may dictate.”

Evidences of the difficulties referred to are found principally in the Pinckney despatches. Before the 1795 treaty was signed, the Spaniards proposed to divide the cases of captures of American vessels into two “epochs,” and to have ships taken during the first of these judged according to the marine ordinances and the general orders communicated at the time.

Pinckney countered with what he described as “specific propositions founded upon justice and the law of nations as now established, by the consent of a great majority of the nations of Europe,” limiting the right of capture to contraband of war and blockade cases. Only that merchandise ought to be considered contraband, the American Minister argued, which was comprised under that description in Art. 24 of the Anglo-Spanish Treaty of May 28, 1667, or in Art. 24 of the Franco-American commercial treaty of 1778. (A text of the last mentioned article is in 8 Stat. 26.) Pinckney’s letter of Oct. 27, 1795, to the Department, recounts his negotiations.

In the negotiations of 1802, the question of Spain’s responsibility for damage done to American vessels in Spanish waters by French privateers furnished occasion for Pedro Cevallos to invoke “rules of the law of nations” against these claims. It was finally agreed that the commissioners under the treaty should decide to what extent, in conformity with the law of nations, the acts committed against the citizens of the United States by foreign cruisers in Spanish waters could be imputed to the Spanish Government. The Spaniards would agree to this only on a basis of reciprocity, to which Pinckney assented.

52 See note 83, infra.

53 S. F. Bemis (ed.), The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy (1927–29), II, 296.

54 C. Savage (ed.), Policy of the United States Toward Maritime Commerce in War (1934), I, pp. 114–115.

55 17 Stat. 863. The article important for the present purpose is the sixth.

56 A useful account of private effort to secure arbitration of the Alabama claims is given by Merle Curti, Peace or War: The American Struggle, 1636–1936 (1936), Ch. III.

57 Protocol XXXVI of Conference between Commissioners, Treaty of Washington Papers 1871, p. 3.

58 Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 3d Ser., Vol. 208, p. 862 (remarks of Sir Charles Adderly).

59 Ibid., p. 867. See also the statement by Sir Roundell Palmer, at pp. 883–4, that “the people of Great Britain, generally, preferred to waive a strict examination of the question on legal and international grounds, in order to get any settlement of it which might bring peace and goodwill for the present, and security for the future.”

60 Ibid., Vol. 214, pp. 1963–1964. The debate in the Commons on the same day, March 21, 1873, is instructive as to British reactions. One speaker thought that it was largely due to the ambiguity of their municipal law that “any Alabama” escaped (p. 1984). Another described international law as “something constructed out of the precedents furnished by great transactions” (p. 1993), and spoke of the “great imprudence of attempting to settle the law of nations by telegraph” (p. 1997).

61 The opinion of Count Beust in correspondence with his government, reported in a despatch from Schenck to Fish, Oct. 7, 1872, For. Rel. 1873, I, 301–302. The material appeared in the Austrian Red Book, extracts from which are given in a despatch from Delaplaine at Vienna to Fish, For. Rel. 1873, I, 69–62. The first mentioned despatch stated that, according to the German Ambassador in London, Germany would probably oppose the rules when they should be proposed for the acceptance of other Powers.

62 XXIV Ops. Atty. Gen. 19.

63 XXX ibid., 213. Examples given were Art. XVIII of the treaty of 1831 with Mexico and Art. XIV of the treaty of 1832 with Chile.

64 Ibid., 316 (italics inserted). The Attorney General (Gregory) declined to answer the question which came from the Secretary of State, on the ground that the inquiry did not present any existing cases arising from administration in an executive department.

65 46 Stat. 2858.

66 Conference on the Limitation of Armament, Sen. Doe. No. 126, 67th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 269, 288, 297.

67 Paragraphs 1 and 3 of Art. 22. The second paragraph contains more detailed rules concerning visit, search and destruction by submarines.

68 London Naval Treaty of 1930: Hearings before the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, 71st Cong., 2d Sess., May 14, 15, 16, 19, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 1930 (Washington, 1930), especially at pp. 85–86, 87.

69 Ibid., p. 343 (statement of Admiral Day, who expressed the opinion that the treaty article took care of the situation as far as it could be taken care of). The question of arming merchant ships also came into the discussion (ibid., pp. 392–395) and Admiral McLean expressed the opinion that the most effective step toward humanizing the use of the submarine in war would have been a provision forbidding the arming of merchant ships when on a peaceful mission.

70 The London Naval Conference, 1935, Department of State Conference Series No. 24 (Washington, 1936), pp. 58, 59, 64, 73, 80, 295.

71 N. Y. Times, Nov. 7, 1936, p. 1; Nov. 24, 1936, p. 5.

72 N: Y. Times, Oct. 15, 1936, p. 4.

73 Text in Senate document mentioned in note 66, supra, p. 887.

On the question of declaring certain other practices in war “crimes,” see the Report of the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference on reciprocity in the application of the 1925 Protocol on Poison Gas and Bacteriological Warfare (94 League of Nations Treaty Series, p. 65). It was suggested that while the undertaking to abstain from using gases, under Art. I, could normally be observed only subject to reciprocity, the undertaking to abstain from use of bacteriological methods should be absolute. “The use of such methods would, in any case, constitute a crime against international law… .” Parl. Papers, Misc. No. 3 (1931), Cmd. 3757, p. 47.

74 Preamble of the convention, 47 Stat. 2021. The substantive contents of the code are dealt with by Paul Des Gouttes, Commentaire de la Convention de Geneve du 97 juillet 1999 (1930), and Gustav Rasmussen, Code des Prisonniers de Guerre (1931).

75 Sess. Laws, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. II, p. 707. The specific references are in Arts. I, II (on states as persons), III (dealing with rights of states according to the law), IV (asserting that state existence is dependent on the law), and VI (on the effect of recognition as an admission by the recognizing state of the recognized entity’s “rights and duties determined by international law”).

76 Septima Conferencia International Americana, Primera, Segunda y Octava Comisiones (Montevideo, 1933), especially at pp. 103, 117, 122, 125. The Anti-War Treaty of 1933 (cited in note 43, supra) refers specifically to international law in connection with its recognition of economic sanctions, as well as in connection with rights, settlement of disputes, and questions left to the competence of individual states.

Additions undertaken at the Buenos Aires Conference, 1936, are not dealt with in the present study.

77 This JOURNAL, Supp., Vol. 24 (1930), p. 195. By the paragraph just following the one mentioned, “in so far as any point is not covered by any of the provisions of the preceding articles, the existing rules of international law shall remain in force.”

78 On at least one occasion the United States put into a treaty as “a principle of the law of nations” the rule that no privilege granted for equivalent or on account of propinquity or other special conditions should come under the stipulation as to favored nations. This was the Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation with Tonga, Oct. 2, 1886, 25 Stat. 1440. The purpose of inserting the article (II) is brought out in the instructions from Mr. Bayard to George H. Bates, Special Agent to Tonga, July 23, 1886 (Special Missions, Sept. 11, 1852—Aug. 31, 1886).

79 2 Cranch 187 (1804).

80 Ops. Atty. Gen. 32. For an even earlier statement, with respect to fisheries, see Livingston’s letter to Franklin, Jan. 7, 1782 (S. F. Bemis (ed.), The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy (1927–29), I, 42).

81 Cunard S.S. Co. v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 100 (1923).

82 43 Stat. 1761. For an account of the development, see Robert L. Jones, The Eighteenth Amendment and Our Foreign Relations (1933), and for a statement concerning the effect of repeal of prohibition upon them, Dickinson’s, E. D. editorial in this JormNAL, Vol. 28 (1934), pp. 101104 Google Scholar.

83 In addition to the treaty with Great Britain, those with Germany (43 Stat. 1815), Panama (43 Stat. 1875), The Netherlands (44 Stat. 2013), Cuba (44 Stat. 2395), and Japan (46 Stat. 2446).

As to the existing rules on the subject, it is useful to refer to Professor Reeves’ statement, made in the light of the Hague Codification Conference discussions of 1930, that there is a rule of international law only as to the minimum width of territorial waters (this JOURNAL, Vol. 24 (1930), p. 491), and to the further statement that the “legal status of the territorial sea does not actually depend upon any universal or cast-iron agreement, or unanimous expression, as to its width, and the modern practice of states certainly rests upon this idea” (ibid., p. 496).

84 43 Stat. 1722. The quotations are from Art. II, para. 2, and Art. VI of the convention. On the general attitude of Mexico as early as 1920 in regard to the claims, see For. Rel. 1920, III, 190. For an opinion critical of the rule embodied in Art. VI, see Esquivel Obregon, T., Mexico y Los Estados Unidos ante El Derecho Internacional (1926), p. 105 ffGoogle Scholar.

85 43 Stat. 1730. Except in the matter of exhaustion of legal remedies, the reclamations were to be handled according to the principles of international law, justice and equity (Art.I, Art. II, para. 1).

86 88 47 Stat. 1915.

87 By Art. VI of the Convention of Nov. 19, 1926, with Great Britain (Parl. Papers, Mexico No. 1 (1927), Cmd. 2876), “the Government of Mexico being desirous of reaching an equitable agreement in regard to the claims … and of granting to the claimants just compensation for the losses or damages they may have sustained, it is agreed that the Commission shall not set aside or reject any claim on the grounds that all legal remedies have not been exhausted prior to the presentation of such claim.” Art. 2 of the Supplementary Convention of Dec. 5, 1930 (Parl. Papers, Mexico No. 1 (1930), Cmd. 3768), sets forth “the desire of Mexico ex gratia fully to compensate the injured parties, and not that her responsibility should be established in conformity with the general principles of International Law.”

88 On the use made of the special rule in the North American Dredging Company case, see A. H. Feller, The Mexican Claims Commissions: 1923–1934 (1935), at pp. 34, 189–191.

89 Cf. Pissard, H., Essai sur la Connaissance et la Preuve des Coutumes (1910).Google Scholar

90 See notes 36 and 37, supra.

91 See, on the general subject, Ernest Nys, “The Development and Formation of International Law,” this JOURNAL, Vol. 6 (1912), pp. 1–29, 279–316.

92 Edward Dumbauld, loc. cit. (note 6, supra), p. 597.

93 Cf. Gustav, Walz, Volkerrecht and Staatliches Becht (1933)Google Scholar.

94 Oppenheim, L., “The Science of International Law: Its Task and Method,” this JOURNAL, Vol. 2 (1908), pp. 313, 349 Google Scholar.