144 



of precedent, usage, «aucl exjuess interiKitioiial antliority may be sup- 

 plied. Tliroiigliout the greater purtiou of Ohri.steiidoiii it presents to 

 each State what may be fairly termed their own consent, bound ui) in 

 the municipal J urisprndence of their owu conntry; and this not merely 

 to the nations of Enrope, whose codes are built on the civil law, but to 

 the numerons colonies and to the independent States which have sprang 

 irom those colonies, and which cover the globe." 1 FIdlllmore sees. bG 

 and 37. Lord Stowell said that a great part of the law of nations was 

 founded on the civil law. The Maria, 1 llohlnson^s Adin. Hep., 303. 

 "A great i^art, then, of international law," Henry Sumner Maine says, 

 "is Roman law spread over Enroi)e by a process exceedingly like that 

 which a few centuries earlier had cansed other portions of lionnin law 

 to filter into the interstices of every European legal system. * * * 

 In a book j)ublished some years ago on Ancient Law, 1 made tliis remark : 

 'Setting aside the Treaty Law of Nations, it is sur^jrising how large a 

 part of the system is made up of pare lioman law. Wherever there is 

 a doctrine of the Koman jurisconsults, allirmed by them to be in har- 

 mony with the jus f/entium [natural lawj, the Pnblicists have found a 

 reason for borrowing it, however i>lainly it may bear the mark of a 

 distinctive lioman origin.' * * * The greatest function of the law 

 of nature was discharged in giving birth to modern international law. 

 * * * j^iiy impression that the Koman law sustained a system of 

 what would now be called interiuitional law, and chat this system was 

 identical with the law of nature, had undoubtedly much iuduence in 

 causing the rules of what the liomans called natural law to be engrafted 

 on and identitted with the modern law of nations " Maine'^s Interna- 

 tional Law, pp. 13, 17, 28. Van Leeuwen: "The lionnin law is at the 

 I)resent day almost everywhere, and by every nation upheld as a com- 

 mon law of nations, and adopted in cases where particuilar laws or 

 customs fail." Koman-DuteJi Laic, Vol. 1, Blc. 1, Ch. 1, sec. 11, p. 3, 

 Ed. 18S1, Kotze''s Translation. And, "it will generally be found," says 

 Halleck, "that the dehciencies of precedent, usage, and express inter- 

 national authority may be supi)lied from the rich treasury of the Roman 

 civil law. Indeed, the greater number of controversies between States 

 would find a just solution iu this comprehensive system of practical 

 equity, which furnishes principles of universal jurisprudence applicable 

 alike to individuals and to States." 1 HalleclvS International Law, c. 

 2y see. 21. 



These authorities justify recourse to the Roman law, as expounded 

 by jurists and commentators, fur those principles of equity, right, 

 and justice that constitute a part of the law of nations. 



