292 SYMPOSIUM ON INTERNATIONAL LAW. 



putes between the independent Greek states, as has been made to the 

 settlement of disputes between nations in recent times. 



These things I particularize for the purpose of emphasizing the 

 point that all law, so called, whether national or international, grows 

 out of the necessities of human intercourse. We commit a funda- 

 mental error in thinking of any system of law as an artificial 

 creation. 



II. Obligation. — It was altogether in harmony with the view 

 above expressed that Grotius and other so-called founders of the 

 modern system of international law regarded its acceptance as a 

 fundamental condition of the admission of a state to its benefits. 

 By these writers the system was regarded as having had its origin 

 among the Christian states of Europe, and non-Christian states 

 were admitted to its benefits only to a limited extent. In course of 

 time, this conception ceased to be sufficiently comprehensive. By the 

 Treaty of Paris of 1856, Turkey was expressly declared to be 

 admitted to the benefits of the public law and concert of Europe. 

 Subsequently, certain states of the Far East, beginning with Japan, 

 expressly assented to the system and were duly recognized as par- 

 ticipants in it. 



But, so far as obligation is concerned, it matters not whether the 

 system was tacitly accepted or expressly adopted. In both cases, 

 the obligation is the same. 



It is necessary, however, to observe the distinction between 

 obligation and enforcement — between the duty to observe a certain 

 rule and the power to compel its observance. The failure to make 

 this distinction constantly produces confusion. We know, as a 

 matter of fact, that, in the attempts to enforce municipal law, a 

 failure of justice often takes place. The skill of an attorney or the 

 bias of a juror may, and no doubt often does, result in the acquittal 

 of a guilty defendant, and yet it does not occur to anyone to say 

 that, because the defendant thus escaped the punishment which he 

 should have been obliged to undergo, the duty of obedience to the 

 law did not in his case exist. Such a suggestion w^e should regard 

 as absurd. Nevertheless, we daily hear the allegation that there is 

 no such thing as international law, because, forsooth, some nation 

 has violated, or is said to have violated, an acknowledged rule. 



