LEGAL NATURE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 489 



quering state is liable for the obligations of the conquered; secondly, 

 that international law forms part of the law of England; and, 

 thirdly, that rights and obligations, which were binding upon the 

 conquered state, must be protected and can be enforced by the 

 municipal courts of the conquering state. 



Inasmuch as the court took jurisdiction of the case, it is evident, 

 therefore, that both the nature and status of international law were 

 necessarily involved, as well as its binding effect upon British 

 courts of justice. 



A portion of the opinion of Lord Chief Justice Alverstone, well 

 known as Sir Richard Webster to international tribunals, follows: 

 "The second proposition urged, that international law forms part 

 of the law of England, requires a word of explanation and comment. 

 It is quite true that whatever has received the common consent of 

 civilized nations must have received the assent of our country, and 

 that to which we have assented along with other nations in general 

 may properly be called international law, and as such will be ac- 

 knowledged and applied by our municipal tribunals when legitimate 

 occasion arises for those tribunals to decide questions to which doc- 

 trines of international law may be relevant. But any doctrine so 

 invoked must be one really accepted as binding between nations, 

 and the international law sought to be applied must, like anything 

 else, be proved by satisfactory evidence, which must show either 

 that the particular proposition put forward has been recognized and 

 acted upon by our own country, or that it is of such a nature, and 

 has been so widely and generally accepted, that it can hardly be 

 supposed that any civilized state would repudiate it. The mere 

 opinions of jurists, however eminent or learned, that it ought to be 

 so recognized, are not in themselves sufficient. They must have 

 received the express sanction of international agreement, or gradu- 

 ally have grown to be part of international law by their frequent 

 practical recognition in dealings between various nations. We 

 adopt the language used by Lord Russell of Killoween in his ad- 

 dress at Saratoga in 1896 on the subject of International Law and 

 Arbitration: ' What, then, is international law? I know no better 

 definition of it than that it is the sum of the rules or usages which 

 civilized states have agreed shall be binding upon them in their 

 dealings with one another.' In our judgment, the second propo- 

 sition for which Lord Robert Cecil contended in his argument 

 before us ought to be treated as correct only if the term ' Interna- 

 tional Law ' is understood in the sense, and subject to the limita- 

 tions of application, which we have explained. The authorities 

 which he cited in support of the proposition are entirely in accord 

 with, and, indeed, well illustrate, our judgment upon this branch of 

 the arguments advanced on behalf of the suppliants; for instance, 



