Prince. — Territorial Waters Yll 



on this subject, chiefly in the famous "De jure belli et pads." 

 Yet even great jurists have felt that international law is a flimsy 

 thing, and one of the greatest modern writers on the matter found 

 himself compelled to speak of it as a branch of jurisprudence, 

 which is the creation of moralists, merely moulded by the acumen 

 of legal authorities and the wisdom of statesmen. 



It was so well-known a writer as Professor Sheldon Amos 

 who admitted that international law was very immature, 

 ambiguous, and indefinite, and was lacking in legislative authority. 

 The opinion of John Austin, an eminent authority on jurisprudence, 

 is generally admitted to be sound, and he does not hesitate to 

 say that "international laws are improperly so termed," the 

 laws being framed and emphasised merely by the opinion of an 

 indeterminate body of men. As the three-mile limit derives its 

 authority from such indefinite moral and ethical principles and 

 summaries of international sentiment and obligation, its founda- 

 tion is vague and unstable. John Austin very properly designates 

 it "positive international morality." Law, to have any force 

 or meaning as Sir Henry Maine stated, implies not only an author- 

 ity to pronounce it law and to define it, but a tribunal capable of 

 enforcing it. There exists no international tribunal sufficiently 

 powerful to bind sovereign States by its decrees, and use com- 

 pulsion if they transgress those decrees. 



During the great war some interesting questions arose as 

 to the cargoes held in seized German steamers at the Antipodes, 

 and the New Zealand Chamber of Commerce, in the capital city 

 of Wellington, when discussing the question of charging certain 

 costs against the seized ships found the objection raised that such 

 could not be done under international law, because at the end of 

 the war these seized steamers must be handed back to the German 

 owners. The President, Mr. C. W. Jones, a prominent New 

 Zealand merchant, thereupon declared to his colleagues that 

 "there has been no such thing as international law since the great 

 war began." International law, it was claimed, can be violated 

 with impunity and amounts to little more than international 

 etiquette or morality. 



Important maritime powers in former days assumed authority 

 over vast oceans and seas, and had even Papal sanction for these 

 extensive territorial claims. The known oceans of the world were 



