Pan-Americanism and imperialism appear to be mutually exclusive. Whether they are so in effect is a matter of definition. Neither term in current usage conveys a precise meaning. Pan-Americanism fails because it has not yet emerged into a distinct and easily recognizable form, and imperialism because it has evolved in the course of history through a variety of forms from which a doubtful choice must be made. In the one case the problem is to decide what meaning, and in the other, which meaning. The "what" is the more difficult to determine, since new concepts such as Pan Americanism acquire meaning with time and circumstance. It is not strange, therefore, that the attempts at formal definition have thus far proved unsatisfactory. Not even the genus to which Pan-Americanism belongs has been agreed upon. One author calls it an advocacy, another an idea, another a sentiment, and sti l others an aspiration, a tendency, or a doctrine. Obviously it does not fall indifferently into all these categories. If it is a sentiment merely, it is less than a doctrine; if it is a doctrine it is more than a tendency; and to call it a tendency is not the same as to say it is an aspiration or an idea. Moreover, none of these classifications when considered separately seems to fit the case.

No more acrid struggle raged in Soviet legal circles during the year 1937 than that over the search for a suitable theory of international law. For eight years lawyers had turned to Eugene B. Pashukanis as the leading Soviet theoretician in this field, but today his position is gone, his books are banned, and he is called an enemy of the people.

Among the numerous problems of an international interest which havebeen raised by the Spanish war, there is one which has attracted the attention of jurists to a lesser degree than certain others, such as the question of the recognition of belligerency, or that of non-intervention. Yet this problem is not without interest from a strictly juridical point of view, for it poses an important question of terminology and, at the same time, permits the clarification of a notion which, although simple, clear and formerly well understood, has been so obscured by erroneous thought that it is difficult to realize that its actual meaning seems to have been lost by our contemporaries. The problem to which we refer is that of piracy, and it is as a result of the misunderstanding and distortion of this term that the civil war in Spain has first come to be inscribed in the annals of maritime warfare.

Among the problems most frequently arising in connection with insurrections and civil wars, are those relating to the status of foreign vessels in the areas of hostilities, and the rights of contesting factions to interfere with such vessels. According to international rules of conduct gradually evolved during the nineteenth century and generally enforced in time of civil disturbance, contending factions enjoy the right to control the movements and activities of foreign shipping within territorial waters, but are not authorized to go upon the high seas and there interfere with foreign vessels unless the states having jurisdiction over such vessels have recognized the belligerency of the contestants.1

In 1805 Napoleon was confronted by the naval power of England, on the one hand, and by the vast military strength of Austria, Russia, and presently Prussia, on the other. The armies of the Continental states he had often defeated, but after every defeat these armies had been reorganized and augmented with the help of English gold. The source of that gold had to be destroyed. A military defeat of the British would accomplish that end and probably decide the issue of the war. Napoleon’s first idea was, therefore, to invade England. That dream was shattered by the English naval victory at Trafalgar, October 21, 1805.