Law: LAW: International Congress

In Vienna, the Institute of International Law opened its 31st Conference in what was, before the War, the Austrian Parliament building. Welcome was extended to the delegates by Foreign Minister Grünberger.

U. S. Jurists present: Prof. James Brown Scott, President of the American Society of International Law; Prof. Philip Marshall Brown, of Princeton University; Frederick R. Coudert, senior partner of the law firm of Coudert Bros., author of Certainty and Justice, and Government delegate to the Universal Congress of Lawyers and Jurists, held at St. Louis in 1904.

The Institute of International Law was founded at Ghent, 51 years ago. Last year it held a 50th Anniversary meeting in the room that saw the first meeting. Later, the 30th Conference was held in Brussels.

International Law is defined as that branch of positive law which governs the inter-relations of states and is clearly distinguished from that branch of positive law which governs the internal affairs of a foreign state and which is commonly called “Municipal Law.” International Law is divided into Public International Law and Private International Law, which is usually referred to by the name “Conflict of Laws.” The weakness of International Law lies in its provisions for enforcing the observance of its principles. Conferences such as the one now being held are generally recognized by jurists as useful in formulating the principles of Public International Law and in solving problems of Conflict of Laws, but as comparatively ineffectual in contriving a means to punish offenses against the Law of Nations.

Dr. Moore’s Book. In Manhattan, there was lately published a large book* elucidating the knottier problems of International Law. It is not a book for laymen; its interest can be only for the legally minded. Its author, Dr. John Bassett Moore, American Judge in the Permanent Court of International Justice, is doubtless the leading active authority on the subject in the U. S. Dr. Moore formerly lectured on International Law at Columbia University. His treatment of his subject was characterized by a fine faith in the value to mankind of the precedents of public International Law, which he held were as consistent and logical and, on the whole, as little violated as the precedents of Municipal Law. “Beware,” he would say, “of the man who feels qualified to speak and write on International Law simply because of the correctness of his moral reactions.”

Dr. Moore has made in this volume no original contribution to knowledge. That was not his purpose. He has rather sought to elucidate certain knotty problems in International Law and to dispel some common illusions.

For many years Elihu Root has been generally spoken of as the foremost international lawyer in the U. S. Mr. Root, as a member of the Alaskan boundary Tribunal (1903), as U. S. Secretary of State in President Roosevelt’s cabinet (1905-1909), as counsel for the U. S. in the North Atlantic Fisheries Arbitration (1910), as a member of the Hague Tribunal since 1910, as one of the Commission of International Jurists which, on invitation of the League, reported the plan for the World Court (established 1921), as Commissioner Plenipotentiary for the U. S. at the Washington Arms Limitation Conference (1921), Mr. Root has had unrivalled experience.

Two younger men who have attained distinction in the field of International Law are:

Prof. Manley O. Hudson, of Harvard University, who was attached to the international law division of the American Peace Mission (1918), was legal advisor to the International Labor Conferences of 1919 and 1920, and to the International Conference on Obscene Publication at Geneva, 1923.

Prof. Edwin M. Borchard, of Yale University, who was for some time law librarian of Congress and an assistant solicitor of the U. S. State Department.

*!NTERNATIONAL LAW AND SOME CURRENT ILLUSIONS AND OTHER ESSAYS—John Bassett Moore, LL.D.—Macmillan.—$4.00.