310 SYMPOSIUM ON INTERNATIONAL LAW. 



While many cast ridicule upon the results of this First Conference 

 at The Hague, states, however, gradually adopted the Conventions 

 drawn up in 1899, and a law for nations deliberately drawn by the 

 representatives of the states assembled for that purpose became a 

 fact. 



There followed eight years later a Second Hague Conference 

 which further elaborated and formulated conventional agreements, 

 and to this conference representatives of forty four of the states of 

 the world came, giving ample evidence of the tendency to accept the 

 principle of international legislation. Some of the conventional 

 agreements have been tested in the course of years. The court es- 

 tablished for the settlement of international disputes has attained a 

 recognized standing. Cases afifecting all parts of the world and more 

 than one third of the nations of the world have already been decided. 

 Many principles have been involved. The awards accepted unhesi- 

 tatingly have tested the strength of the law. 



The Second Hague Conference, building upon the legislation al- 

 ready formulated, endeavored to extend its scope. Among the 

 propositions which have not been adopted as yet into the law of 

 nations was that to establish an international prize court. This 

 proposition was generally approved in principle though a satisfactory 

 method of selection of judges was not devised. To supplement this 

 prize court convention an attempt was made by ten maritime na- 

 tions in 1908-1909 at the International Naval Conference at London 

 to formulate the laws which the court should apply. The Declara- 

 tion of London of 1909 embodied the labors of this Conference. 



Not merely in these broad national matters has the formulation 

 of the law progressed, but in recent years many such matters as the 

 following have become subject of general international agreements: 

 literary and artistic copyrights, 1902; sanitary measures, 1903; white 

 slavery, 1904; potent drugs, 1906. 



While rights, persons, and property, and jurisdiction on land 

 and sea earlier had received attention, in more recent years the use 

 of the air has been the subject of international regulation as in the 

 conventions of 1906 and 1912. To the last of these conventions the 

 representatives of about forty non-American political unities affixed 

 their signatures, many of the larger states allowing here, as in some 



