BROWN— INTERNATIONAL ADMINISTRATION. 315 



interests, of common legal rights and obligations. And the basic 

 sanction of the law of nations consists in the consciousness of what 

 Gareis has concisely stated as " anticipated advantages of reciprocity 

 as well as fear of retaliation." 



It would seem clear therefore that what is needed is not a 

 sovereign international organization to create, interpret, and enforce 

 law. The need is rather of a complete, just, understanding between 

 nations as to what constitutes their mutual interests. 



International congresses and conferences as adjuncts to diplom- 

 acy are greatly to be favored in order to accomplish this great end. 

 The functions of such conferences are of two kinds : one, political — 

 and this the most fundamental — to determine the respective rights 

 of nationalities in all that is essential to their free development ; 

 and the other, legislative, in order to formulate the law which shall 

 safeguard these rights. 



The establishment of an international tribunal as the supreme 

 court of appeal when doubts arise concerning the interpretation of 

 these laws is of course a logical necessity. It is by no means clear, 

 however, that such a tribunal should possess coercive power, any 

 more than in the case of the Supreme Court of the United States in 

 controversies between states. 



It may safely be asserted as a general principle that any compul- 

 sion of a nation that does not appeal to enlightened self-interest may 

 prove a grave menace ; and where enlightened self-interest exists 

 there is no need of compulsion. At any rate, in a normal state of 

 international order estabHshed on a mutual recognition of definitely 

 formulated interests, if a recalcitrant nation should need coercion or 

 chastisement, such an unwelcome task might better be performed 

 through some such limited agency as an alliance of nations, whether 

 openly avowed or in the disguised form of the proposed League to 

 Enforce Peace. Power of such threatening proportions could never 

 readily be entrusted by nations to the free action of a genuine inter- 

 national executive. 



If the preceding reasoning be accepted as sound ; if we concede 

 that international law has no pretence to be supranational law ; that 

 it invokes no sovereign sanction, but appeals to the enlightened self- 

 interest of states ; then an international executive becomes unneces- 



