FINAL ACT OF SECOND PAN AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS. 1 19 



The Western World was an accidental discovery and the continent 

 has been, without exception, the land of experiments. Starting without 

 the traditions of the Old World, it has been the laboratory of modern 

 political thought. The experiment of republican, that is to say demo- 

 cratic, government has been tried in the Western Hemisphere upon a 

 larger and broader scale than ever before in the world's history, and the 

 experience had with democratic government has been such as to endear 

 it to the hearts and to commend it to the intelligence, not merely of Ameri- 

 cans as such but to the enlightened throughout the world. The specific 

 advantage that would accrue to American peoples by the study of their 

 respective constitutions and of their laws and of their institutions is that 

 each would be able to profit by the experiments, and by the departures 

 in political life and thought of each of the countries, and by appropriating 

 the innovations which have proved successful and by modifying them to 

 meet special conditions they would be able to add to their own happiness 

 and to increase the heritage of their offspring. 



ARTICLE 35. The Second Pan American Scientific Congress recom- 

 mends to the various universities of the American Republics 

 that a comparative study of judicial institutions be undertaken 

 in order 



(a) To create special interest therein in the several countries of the 



continent ; 



(b) To facilitate the knowledge and solution of problems of private 



international law in the American countries; and 



(c) To bring about as far as possible uniformity in jurisprudence 



and legislation. 



Articles 2333 dealt with international law. Article 34 forsook 

 international law and urged the desirability of a knowledge and study 

 of the constitutions, laws and institutions of the Western World. Article 

 35, without returning to international law, nevertheless narrows the 

 field of its recommendation and commends the study not merely of 

 institutions as such and of all institutions of the American countries 

 but the comparative study of judicial institutions, in the hope if not 

 in the belief that such a comparative study would create special interest 

 therein in the several countries of the continent and redound to the 

 benefits of each one thereof. A question of very great importance 

 and of equal difficulty is that of the conflict of laws, very frequently called 

 private international law. The great difficulty in this subject is that 

 countries deriving their systems of law from England have adopted 

 the principle of domicile, whereas the countries drawing their inspira- 

 tion and their systems of law from the civil law of Rome are inclined 



