of its sovereign authority, for the guidance and direction of its citizens or subjects. The municipal law of a state applies, as will subsequently appear, not only to citizens, properly so called, but to all persons, whatever their nationality, who come within its territorial limits as travelers or sojourners. As such persons are protected by the local municipal law, it is their duty to conform to its requirements during the period of their residence within its borders. International law, or, as it is sometimes called, the "law of nations," may therefore be defined as that body of rules and limitations which the sovereign states of the civilized world agree to observe in their intercourse and relations with each other. The agreement or consent, which is essential to the validity of a rule of international law, is said to be express, or positive, when it is embodied in treaties, or formal declarations of public policy, or in statutes which are enacted in support, or recognition of the accepted usages of nations; it is said to be tacit when it takes the form of conformity to the approved practice of states in their international relations. The essential difference between the two systems of law will be found to consist in the extent and character of the binding force of each. The sovereign authority of a state sanctions its municipal laws and, within its territorial limits, enforces obedience to their provisions. As sovereign states acknowledge no common superior, it is obvious that there is no authority above a state, or outside of it, which can effectively coerce it into obedience to the provisions of international law. An individual who suffers an injury, or whose personal or property rights are invaded, seeks and obtains redress in the courts of his country, which are authorized to hear and decide his case, and are given power to enforce their judgments and decrees. If, on the other hand, a nation be injured or invaded by another, or have a cause of difference with a foreign state, it cannot appeal to an international tribunal of any kind to remedy its wrong or to adjust its difference, but must seek redress by remonstrance or negotiation, or, as a last resort, by war, when all peaceable methods of adjustment have failed. 173. International law and morality. Sidgwick gives reasons for considering international law as occupying an intermediate position between law proper and morality.1 There are, however, considerations on the other side, leading us to assign to international law, in respect of the normal process of changing it, an intermediate position between ordinary law and ordinary morality, 1 By permission of The Macmillan Company. as they exist in a modern State. Changes in ordinary law are, as we have seen, mainly introduced in modern States by the formal agreement of the persons and bodies that compose the supreme legislature, acting collectively after debate. Changes in Positive Morality, on the other hand, can only be brought about gradually by the unconcerted agreement of a number of individuals, judging of others and acting towards them as individuals, in the exercise of their legal freedom of choice in social relations. Now in the case of international law, though there is no regular organ of legislative innovation, the concerted action of States, in the way of treaties and conventions, plays an important part in the introduction of changes, to which there is no counterpart in the development of positive morality. Further, the concerted action of which I have been speaking is not the only method by which the rules of international law have been modified; it is undeniable that international law, like civil law, has been gradually made more definite and coherent by a series of arguments of the ordinary legal kind, terminated in some cases by judicial or quasi-judicial decisions; and it is conceivable that this process might be continued until international law should reach something like the systematic precision which parts of our own common law have attained through judicial interpretation alone. In these various ways a body of definite rules of international conduct has gradually been formed, which certainly bears, regarded as an intelligible system, a closer resemblance to the positive law than it does to the positive morality of a modern state. 174. International law as law. Leacock summarizes as follows the arguments that may be brought forward in support of the position that international law is properly "law":1 As against the point of view adopted in such criticisms of the propriety of the term "international law," various arguments may be adduced. In the first place, the objection urged by many writers adopting a restricted connotation of the term "law" may also be applied here. We have seen that law in its strict sense is not applicable to a state of society in which life is regulated to a large extent by custom, and to which the idea of deliberate enactment is altogether alien. Nor is the term in its strict sense applicable to a community in which imperfect political organization or chronic anarchy renders the general obedience to regulative control spasmodic and uncertain. Many writers have therefore preferred to expand the sense of the term "law" in order to make its use extend 1 By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. to societies of this character, and recognize the existence of "law in the making," as well as of law. Viewed in this light, international law may be considered as truly law, although as yet only in an inchoative stage; it becomes analogous, as Sir Frederick Pollock expresses it," to those customs and observances in an imperfectly organized society, which have not yet fully acquired the character of law but are on the way to become law." Even at the present stage of its development international law is not so much devoid of a binding sanction as might at first appear. Where its precepts are definite and their meaning obvious, the general presumption of civilized opinion- a potent factor in the world politics of our day is against any power acting in violation of them. A flagrant disregard of international law would involve a decided loss of national prestige, and offer a perhaps tempting chance for intervention on the part of an outside power. 175. The sanction of international law. In his presidential address delivered before the second annual meeting of the American Society of International Law, in 1908, Elihu Root discussed the sanction of international law as follows: In former times, each isolated nation, satisfied with its own opinion of itself and indifferent to the opinion of others, separated from all others by mutual ignorance and misjudgment, regarded only the physical power of other nations. . . . Now, however, there may be seen plainly the effects of a long-continued process which is breaking down the isolation of nations, permeating every country with better knowledge and understanding of every other country, spreading throughout the world a knowledge of each government's conduct to serve as a basis for criticism and judgment, and gradually creating a community of nations, in which standards of conduct are being established, and a world-wide public opinion is holding nations to conformity or condemning them for disregard of the established standards. The improved facilities for travel and transportation, the enormous increase of production and commerce, the revival of colonization and the growth of colonies on a gigantic scale, the severance of the laborer from the soil, accomplished by cheap steamship and railway transportation and the emigration agent, the flow and the return of millions of emigrants across national lines, the amazing development of telegraphy and of the press, conveying and spreading instant information of every interesting event that happens in regions however remote - all have played their part in this change. Pari passu with the breaking down of isolation, that makes a common public opinion possible, the building up of standards of conduct is being accomplished by the formulation and establishment of rules that are being gradually taken out of the domain of discussion into that of general acceptance - a process in which the recent conferences at The Hague have played a great and honorable part. There is no civilized country now which is not sensitive to this general opinion, none that is willing to subject itself to the discredit of standing brutally on its power to deny to other countries the benefit of recognized rules of right conduct. The deference shown to this international public opinion is in due proportion to a nation's greatness and advance in civilization. The nearest approach to defiance will be found among the most isolated and least civilized of countries, whose ignorance of the world prevents the effect of the world's opinion; and in every such country internal disorder, oppression, poverty, and wretchedness mark the penalties which warn mankind that the laws established by civilization for the guidance of national conduct cannot be ignored with impunity. National regard for international opinion is not caused by amour propre alone — not merely by desire for the approval and good opinion of mankind. Underlying the desire for approval and the aversion to general condemnation with nations as with the individual, there is a deep sense of interest, based partly upon the knowledge that mankind backs its opinions by its conduct and that nonconformity to the standard of nations means condemnation and isolation, and partly upon the knowledge that in the give and take of international affairs it is better for every nation to secure the protection of the law by complying with it than to forfeit the law's benefits by ignoring it. Beyond all this there is a consciousness that in the most important affairs of nations, in their political status, the success of their undertakings and their processes of development, there is an indefinite and almost mysterious influence exercised by the general opinion of the world regarding the nation's character and conduct. The greatest and strongest governments recognize this influence and act with reference to it. They dread the moral isolation created by general adverse opinion and the unfriendly feeling that accompanies it, and they desire general approval and the kindly feeling that goes with it. . . These are the considerations which determine the course of national conduct regarding the vast majority of questions to which are to be applied the rules of international law. The real sanction which enforces those rules is the injury which inevitably follows nonconformity to public opinion; while, for the occasional and violent or persistent lawbreaker, there always stands behind discussion the ultimate possibility of war, as the sheriff and the policeman await the occasional and comparatively rare violators of municipal law. CHAPTER XII CONTENT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW I. INDEPENDENCE AND EQUALITY 176. Nature of intervention. In opposition to the general principle that states are independent and equal, and hence free from external interference, the nature of "intervention" may be noted. Intervention takes place when a state interferes in the relations of two other states without the consent of both or either of them, or when it interferes in the domestic affairs of another state irrespectively of the will of the latter for the purpose of either maintaining or altering the actual condition of things within it. Prima facie intervention is a hostile act, because it constitutes an attack upon the independence of the state subjected to it. Nevertheless its position in law is somewhat equivocal. Regarded from the point of view of the state intruded upon, it must always remain an act which, if not consented to, is an act of war. But from the point of view of the intervening power it is not a means of obtaining redress for a wrong done, but a measure of prevention or of police, undertaken sometimes for the express purpose of avoiding war. The grounds upon which intervention has taken place, or upon which it is said with more or less of authority that it is permitted, may be referred to the right of self-preservation, to a right of opposing wrongdoing, to the duty of fulfilling engagements, and to friendship for one of two parties in a state. 177. Intervention of the powers in behalf of Greek independence. In 1821 Greece revolted against the oppressive government of the Turks. After terrible massacres the Greeks aroused the sympathy of western Europe, and the intervention of England, Russia, and France forced the Sultan to recognize their independence in 1829. Of the intervention of Great Britain, France, and Russia, Mr. Abdy in his edition of Kent, thus speaks: "The intervention . . was based on three grounds. First, in order to comply with the request of one of |