140 



tions with one another, with a force comparable in natnre and degree 

 to that binding the conscientious person to obey tlie laws of his country." 

 Manual of International Law, Dutch, 1SS4, Vol. 1, PL II, chap. 3, sec. 

 21, p. 66. 



Carlos Testa : "This application of the precepts of natural law, which 

 obliges nations to practice the same duties that it prescribes for 

 individuals, constitutes the law of nations, which, when considered 

 according to its origin (which is based upon natural law), is also called 

 the primitive or necessary law of nations. * * * The origins of inter- 

 national law are therefore three in number: (1) The reason and the 

 conscience of what is just and unjust, independent of any prescription; 

 (2) custom; (3) public treaties. The principles, practices, and usages 

 of the law of nations, in accordance with these limits, reguhitc the 

 conduct of nations, and it is for this reason that in their generality they 

 constitute international law. Conventional law may abrogate the law 

 of custom, but it loses its character as a law if it establishes provisions 

 at variance with natural law." Le Droit International Maritime 

 {Fortngucsc), translated by II. Boutiron, 18S6, Pt. 1, eh. 1, p. 46. 



Looking, then, to the reason of the thing, and to the concurrence of 

 views upon this point, among jurists and publicists, I must withhold my 

 assent from the proposition that this Tribunal, in ascertaining whether 

 the law of nations sanctions and supports the claim of property made 

 by the United States, may not consider — the question not being con- 

 cluded by treaties or precedents — what is demanded in respect to the 

 subject of controversy by the law of nature, that is, by the principles of 

 justice, sound reason, morality, and equity, as recognized and approved 

 by civilized peoples. 



The question was propounded in argument whether any precedent 

 precisely in point was recorded in the writings of ])ublicists, or in the 

 judgments of the courts, or in the statutes or ordinances of maritime 

 nations, tlmt supports the claim of the United States to own these 

 seals and inotect them when they are in the seas, beyond territorial juiis- 

 diction. This question must, of course, be answered in the negative, be- 

 cause, so far as is known, the case has never before arisen. And it would 

 not now be a ])ractical one but for the intervention of pelagic sealing, 

 the prosecution of which involves the very existence of this i-ace 

 of animals. It has not heretofore been asserted in behalf of any 

 nation tJiat the doctrine of the freedom of the seas recognized it as a 

 right^ in iiulividuals, even by methods barbarous and cruel, to exter- 

 minate a race of useful animals, found by them in the high seas, and 

 thereby deprive the world of all benefit to be derived from them. It 



