A clearer definition of the scope and purposes of the Pan American Union and a reaffirmation of faith and confidence in the purposes of the institution and the principles which it represents, are among the outstanding accomplishments of the Sixth International Conference of American States, which met at Habana from January 16 to February 20,1928. The discussions by the committee appointed to consider the organization of the Union demonstrated anew the interest of the representatives of the twenty-one Republics in the institution and their desire to make it of the greatest possible influence in cementing the bonds of economic, social and cultural union between the nations of the Western Hemisphere. Throughout the proceedings it was clearly evident that all the delegates were animated by these motives. Differences of opinion that developed were not of a fundamental character, affecting the existence of the Union itself, but related to the extent of the powers to be granted to the institution and to matters of internal organization. At the same time the results of the deliberations definitely settled the doubts and possible misunderstandings that had previously existed with respect to the extent of the political authority that the Union might exercise.

According to the theory accepted by the American and English courts, and by nearly all the American and English writers on international law, war between nations is war between their individual citizens. It makes of the citizens or subjects of one belligerent, enemies of the citizens or subjects of the other. The whole nation is embarked in one common bottom and must be reconciled to submit to one common fate. The government at war is the representative of the will of all the people and acts for the whole society. According to the rival theory, which, though first put forward by Rousseau merely as a philosophical principle, has been accepted by a large number of Continental jurists as a fundamental principle of international law, war is a relation between states in which individuals are enemies only accidentally, not as men nor even as citizens, but simply as soldiers. Under the Anglo-American theory, the private property of the nationals of each belligerent, on land or sea, is in principle subject to capture and confiscation by the other belligerent.

A distinction, associated with the name of Westlake, has been drawn between legal and political international disputes, and this terminology appears to have found its way into the text-books. It formed the basis of the project for obligatory arbitration put forward by the Russian delegates at the First Hague Conference. At the present day, however, not only are the terms frequently employed in different senses, but there is considerable difference of opinion as to the utility of drawing such a distinction at all. A discussion of the question before an assembly of eminent American jurists resulted in the expression of many widely divergent views, and their deliberations indicate a notable absence of agreement both on this topic and on the closely related question of the basis of arbitration. Yet the whole question is one of fundamental importance, and so far from being a matter of merely academic interest, it has a direct practical bearing on any scheme for the extension of the principle of compulsory arbitration. The question of the justiciable character of disputes is an inevitable result of the movement in recent years in favor of general treaties of arbitration, providing for disputes of the future. It is notorious that the Second Hague Conference failed to solve the problem by an attempt to draw up “ arbitrable lists” of disputes, and it is doubtful whether a very satisfactory solution has been found by the more general definition of disputes of a legal nature laid down by Article 36 of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice.

The legal nature of property in mines has been the subject of much discussion, and varies, not only with the different systems of law, but also in different countries accepting the same legal system. In Roman law, the owner of the soil was theoretically considered to own all beneath the surface to the center of the earth, and all above it to the heavens, though there is considerable evidence that at one period of the Roman law the property in mines was separate from that of the surface. It is fairly certain, too, that the State was deemed to have an interest in mines and entitled to a portion of the profits.

The preamble of the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 between Great Britain (on behalf of Canada) and the United States declares its purpose to be:

When in 1895 the French jurist Féraud-Giraud launched his comprehensive study Etats et Souverains devant les Tribunaux Etrangers, he began with this declaration:

Je n'hésite pas, dès le début de ce travail, & poser en principe et commerègle générale, que les tribunaux ne peuventconnaîre d'une demande portae devant eux contre un governement stranger.

J'ajoute immediatement que cette regie, si elle doit etre acceptee comme principe dominant de la mature, comporte bien des tempéraments et meme de véritables exceptions.

Je n'ose dire que certains ont voulu la voir appliquer d'une manière completement absolue; mais alors que des auteurs et des cours de justice se montraient très disposes à etendre plus ou moins ces exceptions, d'autres se sont efforcés de les renfermer dans les plus étroites limites.(Tome I, 28.)

As a result of the expansion of Western trade during the nineteenth century following the industrial revolution, Western nations, ever eager for the coveted trade of the Orient, and stimulated by the need of finding new markets for their accumulating exports, pushed their insistent way into the Far East with new determination. There followed a series of treaties with Eastern potentates opening up new trading areas and clothing Western merchants with extraterritorial rights roughly similar to those enjoyed by foreigners under the Turkish Capitulations. Thus was born in the Orient the régime of extraterritoriality which in three quarters of a century was destined to become the focus of increasing disturbance and unrest in the Far Eastern world.

More than seven years have now passed since the treaty creating the Permanent Court of International Justice was opened for signature at Geneva.1 For more than six years, the court has been at work,2 and it is now holding its fourteenth session. In this period, it has handed down eleven judgments and fifteen advisory opinions, and has thus made a substantial contribution to the better ordering of the international life of our time.3 Few if any informed people had envisaged such a large measure of usefulness for the court before it was established, and most of us had not dared to hope that in such a short time it would have builded its foundations so firmly. As an agency for the extension of the application of law in international affairs, the court now holds an assured position, and it offers promise of large influence toward reducing international friction in the future. It now seems improbable that the world will ever again be willing to be without this or a similar tribunal, and if its present organization is not to be deemed as final, it seems clear that the existing court must serve a,s the basis of any future attempt to achieve a better administration of international justice according to law.

Starting, as we must start, from the proposition, that in the international sphere, treaties are at any rate no less binding than are contracts in the municipal sphere, may we nevertheless agree that treaties become obsolete, and, if yes, when and in what conditions? Has Article 19 of the Covenant of the League in any way diminished the respect due to treaty obligations? These are questions, which have a special importance at a time when the world has recently been resettled by treaty, and it is worth while to give a little time to their examination. Such an examination may at least serve to clear our ideas, to suggest what are the limits of the doctrine, and to emphasize the necessity, if those limits are to be defined, of a resort to an international court of justice.