Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/869

833 INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNALS 833 it was with just that sort of disputes that the courts were intended to deal. Their great object was to prevent the blood feuds follow- ing on murder; and what could be more a point of honor than to avenge one's kinsman? Doubtless the belief of one or both the parties that their honor or vital interests were concerned, often caused them to defy the courts; and often their defiance was successful, even after the courts had in theory power to compel obedience. Such a state of affairs has existed recently in Corsica and Kentucky. But that was not because the law gave immunity. Another kind of point of honor, that of the duelling code, came later into prominence, and was the occasion of much private warfare. But no court in EngHsh-speaking countries, at least, has recognized the duel as lawful. If duellists commonly escaped punishment, it was not be- cause the law renounced jurisdiction. In affairs between man and man, the importance of a claim seems a preposterous objection to submitting it to a court. As for ques- tions of honor, there can never be disgrace in submitting to public authority. The point of honor, as something to fight about, has pretty well disappeared from private life in Anglo-Saxon countries. That it is not necessary to exclude matters of "honor or vital interest" from the jurisdiction of international tribunals is shown by the fact that disputes alleged to involve such matters are fre- quently capable of being decided not only by some international body, but by a court acting judicially. As a matter of history, many affairs involving the honor and vital interests of a nation have been successfully submitted to arbitration. The question of sovereignty over certain territory, for instance, is usually felt to involve not only a vital interest but the honor of the nation. Yet disputes as to boundaries, as well as others touching the honor of nations, have often been settled by courts of arbitration.^^ It is true there were many matters, now fruitful subjects of liti- gation, with which the courts in early times did not attempt to deal, but they were not, as a rule, matters of honor or vital interest. On many subjects there was no law, because in the existing state of civilization cases for the courts did not arise. There was also a large class of matters, comparable with the internal affairs of na- ^ MoRias, International Arbitration, 95-100. Goldsmith, League to En- force Peace, 100, 123.