It is generally agreed that the modern origins of the law of nations are to be found in two great early seventeenth-century works, Suarez’ Tractatus de legibus ac deo legislatore (1612) and Grotius' De jure belli et pacis (1625). Among their contemporaries, Suarez and Grotius were moderate and mediating men, and they were therefore particularly aware that the basic problems of international diplomacy—the just causes and conduct of war, treatment of prisoners, acquisition of sovereignty and booty through conquest, neutrality or intervention, maritime law, treaties, etc., had become profoundly complicated by the growth of a conscious and extreme political nationalism.

The Declaration of Paris of 1856 reads as follows:

1. (1) Privateering is and remains abolished.

2. (2) The neutral flag covers enemy goods with the exception of contraband of war.

3. (3) Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under an enemy’s flag.

4. (4) Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective, that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient to prevent access to the coasts of an enemy.

This declaration was directly and indirectly caused by the Crimean War, beginning in 1854 and ending in 1856, which war was a result of the war between Turkey and Russia, which began in October, 1853.

The ostensible cause of this latter war was a dispute which had arisen upon the custody of the Holy Places in Jerusalem. The real cause was the intention of Russia to begin the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire in Europe. The Czar of Russia suggested in January, 1853, to the British Ambassador at St. Petersburg that England might receive Egypt and Crete as her portion of the proposed result. Prance and England were ready, however, for various reasons, to come to the assistance of Turkey, while Count Cavour, in order to increase the prestige and political position of Sardinia, was desirous of joining the Anglo-French Alliance.

The doctrine which is here being discussed has been stated as follows:

The legality of the annexation of Austria by Germany under international law stems out from the peace treaties signed in the suburbs of Paris at the end of World War I. The Treaty of Versailles of June 28, 1919, between Germany and the Allied and Associated Powers.

The approval of the Alaskan statehood bill by the 1958 session of the United States Congress focuses new attention on the increasing penetration of the high northern latitudes. But Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Soviet Union, as well as the United States, have long been active in this frontier region.

There is being developed a special technique of codification. The Sixth Pan American Conference at Havana adopted in the form of seven conventions a codification of that number of topics in public international law; namely, on the status of aliens, treaties, diplomatic privileges and immunities, asylum, civil strife, and maritime neutrality. The preparatory work had been done by (a) the American Institute of International Law working through its executive committee, and (b) the Rio Commission of Jurists reestablished by the Fifth Pan American Conference. The proposed world conference upon codification has now been called to meet at The Hague in the spring of this year. There have been no official indications as yet of its postponement because of other international conferences. The machinery created by the League of Nations to perform the work preparatory to this conference has been functioning since 1925. The working of this machinery has already been described in this Jo u rn al down to the creation of the present Preparatory Committee for the Codification Conference. It will be remembered that the Committee of Experts for the Progressive Codification of International Law, composed of sixteen members, prepared a provisional list of topics suitable for codification by international agreement, made reports upon various topics, submitted questionnaires upon seven of them to the various governments, and selected therefrom three topics as the agenda of the first world conference on codification. This cpmmittee also made one general and two special reports upon the further work of codification, with some indications as to procedure.

Two projects for the creation of an international prize court were laid before the Second Hague Peace Conference on the same day (June 22, 1907) one by the German and one by the British delegation. The United States at the time and France later warmly approved the proposed institution, and a joint project in the nature of a compromise was drafted and presented to the Conference by the four Powers, which, after much debate, prolonged discussion, opposition on the part of some delegations and hesitation on the part of others, was adopted with some amendments by the Conference and forms what is known as the Convention Relative to the Establishment of an International Prize Court of October 18,1907. Although signed by thirty-three Powers, the court contemplated by the convention has not been established by reason, it would seem, of objections raised by Great Britain to Article 7 of the convention, to remedy which a conference of leading maritime nations was called by Great Britain to agree upon important principles of law to be applied by the court, when constituted, in the decision of certain classes of prize cases. In this conference, known as the International Naval Conference, held at London from December 4, 1908, to February 26, 1909, representatives of Germany, the United States, Austria-Hungary, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Russia, and Spain participated. An agreement, called the Declaration of London, dated February 26,1909, upon the principles of law to be applied by the proposed court, in accordance with Article 7 of the original convention, was reached. Like the original convention, it was also in the nature of a compromise. It met with the approval of the British Government, for it was signed by the delegates of that government acting under instructions, as is the wont of diplomatic conferences, and it seemed at the time that it removed the objections to the ratification of the original convention and to the establishment of the Prize Court in so far as Great Britain was concerned. The government considered it satisfactory and introduced a bill in both Houses of Parliament, modifying British practice in such a way as to meet the requirements of the Prize Court Convention, as modified by the Declaration of London. It passed the House of Commons, but failed in the House of Lords, owing to the unexpected, bitter and persistent opposition on the part of the public, so that the government has up to the spring of 1914 ratified neither the Hague Convention nor the Declaration of London. The signatories of the original convention and of the Declaration have waited, and are still waiting, for favorable action by Great Britain upon these two international documents, apparently unwilling to create the International Prize Court without the co-operation of Great Britain, and to bind themselves by the provisions of the Declaration framed by a conference called by Great Britain to meet British objections, unless it be ratified by Great Britain. The establishment of the Prize Court, therefore, is thus made to depend upon the action of Great Britain.

So great has been the progress of the inter-American regional system over the past fifty years that it is difficult for a later generation to understand how hesitant and faltering the statesmen of an earlier day could have been in their approach to problems for which we have now found, if not the solution, at least the basis upon which to construct a solution. States were sovereign then, and sovereignty, as the term was practically applied, meant that states were not so much above the law but rather outside its scope in respect to the fundamental and recurrent issue of the defense of national interests.