1666 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



national law, that international law depends on the practice. There 

 is not, of course, any universal legislative parliament. There is no 

 body of nations competent to make law for all nations; and as laws 

 cannot be made by any international parliament, because none exists, 

 the place of that parliament cannot be taken by ingenious and philo- 

 sophic gentlemen dignified by the name of jurists a most learned 

 and invaluable class, but they have their limitations, and I venture 

 to think that they have recognised their limitations. They have 

 safeguarded their speculations in a way which is entitled to recog- 

 nition, and which I shall hereafter explain. But they cannot make 

 laws. There is no parliament to make laws. Then international 

 law is really, in this respect, another name for custom. I do not 

 want to lay down propositions which may be hereafter sought to be 

 applied beyond the scope of the argument to which they relate. It 

 is a very dangerous practice. I am only laying down my proposi- 

 tions in reference to this case; and I say that what Mr. Turner had 

 to prove here was an international custom or practice of States estab- 

 lishing these four propositions of his. In order to show that 

 1007 they were part of international law, it was not enough for 

 him to produce these learned authorities who talked about 

 servitudes as if they were part of international law. That is not 

 enough. He must produce instances of the action of States, treating 

 servitudes as part of the law, and expressing themselves as bound 

 by that law. He has not done that. And in the same way, as to 

 the nature of servitudes, that they carried with them the conse- 

 quences in regard to sovereignty that I have described. He must 

 put himself in the position of showing that, by the practice of 

 States not merely by written contracts, because I will show some- 

 thing about that later on; a written contract may be an exception to 

 the practice ; a written contract may supersede all questions of custom 

 or practice he must put himself in the position of showing that, 

 in the absence of a written contract, by the practice of States, servi- 

 tudes had this consequence. He does not show it. He does not 

 attempt to show it. 



He has, therefore, to establish, as I have said, a custom. And I 

 dare say that all the members of the Tribunal are familiar with the 

 manner in which a custom is proved in municipal law. There is no 

 difference in the manner of proof in international law. One has the 

 case of two merchants in a particular trade, making some very short 

 contract, the terms of which can scarcely be gathered from the print 

 or from the document, because they are so elliptically expressed, so 

 curtly and shortly expressed by men of business. Why is the contract 

 so short? Why do they not set out all the terms with regard to de- 

 livery and inspection and so on? Because the custom of the trade 

 gives them all these benefits, and they are contracting with reference 



