Il6 FINAL ACT OF SECOND PAN AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS. 



/. Every nation has the right to exist and to protect and to conserve its 

 existence; but this right neither implies the right nor justifies 

 the act of the state to protect itself or to conserve its existence 

 by the commission of unlawful acts against innocent and 

 unoffending states. 



The official commentary states that this right and duty is to be under- 

 stood as interpreted (a) by the Chinese Exclusion Case (reported in 130 

 United States Reports, pp. 581, 606), decided by the Supreme Court of 

 the United States in 1888, holding that to preserve its independence and 

 give security against foreign aggression and encroachment is the highest 

 duty of every nation, and to attain these ends nearly all other considera- 

 tions are to be subordinated ; (6) by the case of Regina v. Dudley (reported 

 in 15 Cox's Criminal Cases, p. 624; 14 Queen's Bench Division, p. 273), 

 decided by the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice in 

 1884, to the effect that it was unlawful for shipwrecked sailors to take the 

 life of one of their number, in order to preserve their own lives, because 

 it was unlawful according to the common law of England for an English 

 subject to take human life, unless to defend himself against an unlawful 

 attack of the assailant threatening the life of the party unlawfully 

 attacked; (c) by BELLO in his Principios de Derecho de Jentes, pt. i, 

 ch. i, sec. 7, edition of 1832, and by CALVO in his Droit International 

 Theorique et Pratique, 5th ed., Vol. I, sec. 208. 



//. Every Nation has the right to independence in the sense that it has 

 a right to the pursuit of happiness and is free to develop itself 

 without interference or control from other states, provided that in so 

 doing it does not interfere with or violate the rights of other states. 

 HI. Every nation is in law and before law the equal of every other nation 

 belonging to the society of nations, and all nations have the right 

 to claim and, according to the Declaration of Independence of 

 the United States, "to assume, among the powers of the earth, 

 the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of 

 nature's God entitle them." 



The rights and duties of independence and of equality stated in Articles 

 2 and 3 are, according to the official commentary, to be understood as 

 interpreted 



(a) By Sir WILLIAM ScoTT in the case of The Louis (reported in 

 2 Dodson's Reports, pp. 210, 243-244), decided in 1817, in which he 

 said: "Two principles of public law are generally recognized as fun- 

 damental. One is the perfect equality and entire independence of all 

 distinct states." 



