486 INTERNATIONAL LAW 



or international tribunal in which it can be enforced, as is the case 

 with municipal law. If we point to The Hague as a partial refu- 

 tion of the objection, the immediate and triumphant reply is that 

 the international sheriff is lacking or powerless to execute the 

 judgment, and necessarily so, for is not the law of nations based 

 upon the equality of states? It is evident, therefore, that neither 

 superior nor inferior can exist. There is doubtless much in this 

 criticism, but in fact as well as in theory international law does 

 exist and is accepted, applied, and observed in its entirety by all 

 civilized nations in their constant and common intercourse. We 

 may readily admit that force may be necessary to cause the observ- 

 ance of municipal law; but if we find international law observed 

 as a whole we must presume that a sanction lies back of it, whether 

 it be physical or moral force, or the force of public opinion. The 

 compelling force is, in any case, a sufficient and satisfactory sanc- 

 tion. 



Nor is this the dream of the enthusiast; it is the sober claim 

 of the patient and unemotional jurist. To quote von Savigny: 

 " There may be developed among different peoples a community 

 of legal consciousness analogous to that created in a single people 

 by positive law. The foundation of this intellectual community is 

 constituted partly by a community of race, but principally by a 

 community of religious belief. Such is the basis of international 

 law, which obtains principally among the Christian and European 

 states, but which was not unknown to the peoples of antiquity, as 

 is evident by the Roman Jus feciale. This law we may consider as 

 positive law, although it is not yet a completed legal system." 

 (System des Heutigen Romischen Rechts (1840), vol. i, sec. 11.) 

 To which may be added the statement of one hardly less distin- 

 guished, Von Jhering, who states his opinion unhesitatingly and 

 unequivocally in a single sentence: " The legal nature of inter- 

 national law cannot be doubted." (Zweck im Recht (1877), vol. i, 

 p. 223.) 



If we reject the testimony of the civilian and question the inter- 

 national lawyer, the answer is equally positive and convincing. 

 For example, the late Professor Rivier thus expressed the prevail- 

 ing view of Continental specialists: " The law of nations, founded 

 not upon simple abstractions, but upon facts, is a system of posi- 

 tive law. Its principles are veritable legal principles, recognized 

 as such and consequently as binding by the common conscience 

 of the states forming the family of nations." (Droit de Gens, vol. i, 

 p. 18.) 



If we turn now from the Continent to the English-speaking 

 world, the answer is indeed even more positive, if less reasoned and 

 philosophical. In England, international law has been declared by 



