FINAL ACT OF SECOND PAN AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC 



(d) In a general course on international law the experience of no 

 one country be allowed to assume a consequence out of pro- 

 portion to the strictly international principles it may illus- 

 trate. 



Just as Article 24 urged an increase of the instruction in international 

 law and diplomacy, so Article 25 urges that the instruction itself be more 

 thorough, be more detailed, and be more efficient than heretofore. 



Section (a) recommends that the positive nature of international law 

 and the definiteness of its rules be emphasized and wisely, because if 

 international law is not law but a system of morality, of ethics, of 

 philosophy or of history, it has no place in positive jurisprudence, and 

 it can make no claim to a standard of conduct by which the rights and 

 duties of nations are to be measured. If the definiteness of the rule be 

 not impressed upon the student, he is left with the erroneous conception 

 that international law is a loose and disjointed system, if system it is 

 to be called, instead of a system of law whose rules are definite as far 

 as they go, and whose imperfections are due to the fact that it is a grow- 

 ing not a completed system as is the case with municipal law. 



In stating that the teaching of international law should not be made 

 the occasion for a universal peace propaganda, the Congress meant to 

 convey the idea that through the application of the principles of justice 

 to the relations of nations, peace necessarily results, just as the peace 

 of the community depends upon the existence of principles of justice and 

 their application to the disputes that arise among the people composing 

 the community. International law should, in the opinion of the Con- 

 gress, be taught as a system of jurisprudence, as a means of realizing 

 justice, and not perverted to the advocacy of peace as such, although the 

 highway to peace does undoubtedly run through justice. 



That the Congress had in mind the services which international law 

 could render to the cause of peace is seen in the recommendation that 

 the evolutionary character of the rules of international law should be 

 impressed upon the student, showing how, with the development of 

 rules of law, order, and equilibrium have resulted. The Congress, 

 however, felt that the influence of rules of law, governing the relations 

 of equal but interdependent nations would best' be seen by a study of 

 the development of the rules and their consequences; and it therefore 

 stated that such a presentation was best calculated to show how "the 

 development of positive rules of law governing the relations between 

 States has contributed toward the maintenance of peace." In a word, 

 the study of international law should be scientific, it should not be 

 propagandistic. 



