Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 15.pdf/118

 International A rbitration. INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION. IN a paper read recently before the Scots Law Society, at Edinburgh, and printed in the current number of The Juridicial RcricKi, Sir Robert T. Reid discusses the ques tion how far legal methods can be extended for the adjudication of controversies between nations. "Unqualified submission by antece dent treaty of all disputes that may arise," he says, "is practically unknown among na tions. ... So to engage States by previous treaties that their disputes shall fall automa tically under a ready-made jurisdiction . . . is for the present a chimerical hope." For this he gives the following reasons: International law, by which such disputes must be determined, is a very incomplete code, and also a very uncertain code. In some points it is clear enough, and univer sally accepted; but there is a vast field in which nations are not agreed upon principles, and even less agreed upon the application of them. For example, what is contraband of war? Hall says, "The policy of nations . . . has been governed by no principle. The wish to keep open their own or a foreign market has usually been a motive quite as powerful as the hope of embarassing an enemy, and it has led to a thoroughly confused practice. Usage does not conform to principle, and at the same time no sufficient rule can be ex tracted from it'' (International Law, 3rd Ed. p. 660 ). Or again, what are the duties of neutrals in case of war? In the Treaty of Washington certain rules touching part of the duties of neutrals were laid clown, and the two contracting States, Great Britain and the United States of America, agreed to <lo their utmost to secure the general accept ance of these rules. They have proved, how ever, under criticism to be defective, and are cartainly not likely to be universally ao cepted. Indeed, they are acknowledged to be most imperfect. They require a neutral

power to use due diligence to prevent the fitting out, arming, or equipping within its jurisdiction of any vessel which it has reason able ground to believe is intended to cruise or earn' on war against a belligerent. Now obviously no neutral can lawfully allow its territory to be made the basis of a warlike expedition, but the language of the Rule, if strictly construed, might forbid the sale of ships, even though not armed. They also require that no neutral port shall be used for the purpose of the renewal or augmenta tion of military supplies or arms. If that is to be taken literally, British traders woufd not be allowed to send from this country in time of war, to either belligerent, rifles or ammunition, or food supplies, or clothing in tended for an army in the field. In other words, the national trade of this country would be crippled. Commentators on the Geneva Tribunal, which adjudicated on this question, have endeavored to lay down cer tain broad principles. That effort has failed still more signally. Few authorities on Inter national Law would be prepared to accept the Geneva doctrines. Even more perplex ing are maxims enunciated by writers or adopted by statesmen in official despatches upon the vexed subject of boundaries, as to how they are to be ascertained, and what should be the character and period of occu pation, from which sovereignty in this or that territory may be inferred. In short, if nations are unwilling to bind themselves beforehand that they will arbitrate upon fu ture differences, they are equally unwilling to accept beforehand a fixed rule of Inter national Law. Your difficulty is not merely to establish your Court by consent. It is far from easy to establish the principles by which that Court shall be guided, ami the explana tion is not hard to seek. Rules of Interna tional Law which suit one class of State, for