1903-4. | INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION, 43 
(1818), 1 B. and Ald. 405, Lord Ellenborough, C. J., laid it down that 
the general mode of trial by law, in a case of appeal, is by battle, at the 
election of the appellee, unless the case be brought within certain ex- 
ceptions not necessary to be here referred to. This mode of trial intro- 
duced into England by the Normans remained the law of the land until 
1809, when it was abolished by 59 Geo. III. ch. 46. 
Though one cannot discuss in detail the various schemes from time 
to time propounded for the peaceful settlement of international disputes, 
one may be permitted a passing reference to the proposal of Leibnitz, 
made almost at the end of the seventeenth century, that the Pope and 
the Emperor of Germany be joint public arbitrators. 
A few years later a more elaborate plan was advocated by the Abbé 
de Saint Pierre who proposed a general league of Christendom. 
Later in the eighteenth century, Jeremy Bentham advocated a feder- 
ation of the nations for the purposes of international justice, which should 
be administered by a common tribunal. 
Towards the close of the eighteenth century, Immanuel Kant, in his 
famous essay ‘‘Touching Eternal Peace,’’ advocated a congress of free 
nations to meet when necessary, to decide international disputes. 
During the nineteenth century, there were many instances of the 
successful application of the principle of international arbitration to the 
solution of international difficulties which the resources of diplomacy 
failed to settle. 
Probably the most notable triumph of the principle was that cry- 
stallized in the Treaty of Washington, 1871, between Great Britain and 
the United States. By this Treaty several disputes, some of long 
standing, and all causes of great irritation, were referred to different 
Boards of Arbitrators. 
What were known as the Alabama claims were referred to a board 
of five arbitrators, one to be nominated by the President of the United 
States, one by Her Britannic Majesty, one by the King of Italy, one by 
the President of the Swiss Confederation, and the fifth by the Emperor 
of Brazil. The agreement of reference stipulated that the arbitrators 
should be bound by three rules, therein stated, as to the obligations of 
neutral Governments, and by such of the principles of International Law, 
not inconsistent with these three rules, asthe Arbitrators should determine 
to be applicable to the case. The result was expressed in the ‘‘Geneva 
Award,” so called because the arbitrators met at Geneva. 
By this same Treaty, certain claims, other than Alabama claims, 
