ARGUMENT OP SIB WTLLJAM BOBSON. 1671 



sovereignty by reason of its sacrifices and its successes in war. That 

 was given up. Then it turned to international law. And, as I have 

 said, international law says : " I cannot help you. My view is, and 

 every authority confirms it, that you cannot get beyond your treaty. 

 It is no good. You are trying to prove a custom. International law 

 will not allow that there is any such proof possible, because although 

 a custom would suffice in municipal law in municipal law a custom 

 would add such a term to the contract, when once that custom 

 1010 is proved custom will not do in international law, even if 

 you have the material for proving a custom, because we insist 

 on writing." 



That is why I said a few moments ago that the jurists must be 

 fairly treated in this matter. The jurists have safeguarded the law 

 concerning which they were writing. They have not assumed to lay 

 down the law. They do not pretend that their opinions and specu- 

 lations make law for great States. They put up no such pretence. 

 They have been quoted in great number as though they did, but that 

 is not really the view that they take themselves of what they are 

 doing when they speculate on servitudes. They say: "We may 

 speculate as we like, but whenever any nation comes to claim any 

 advantage or power as the result of a servitude grant, it must not 

 look to us; it must not look to custom; it must look to its treaty, 

 look to its document. If it can find there any clause stipulating for 

 a transfer of sovereignty, it has established its sovereignty ; but if it 

 cannot, so far as the voice of international law has anything to say 

 on the matter, it says distinctly: "Then you must go without the 

 terms that you desire to imply, because international law says you 

 must have it there, or else you cannot act upon it." 



And when these learned jurists are speculating about servitudes 

 and so on, they are really generalising, in a philosophic spirit, upon 

 actual treaties. I have gone through the list of alleged servitudes 

 in these authorities. There are a great many of them, very much of 

 the same character. They are easily grouped. I do not propose to 

 trouble the Tribunal with the results of all that research. They are 

 very easily grouped into different classes servitudes about garrisons 

 and the passage of troops and matters of navigation, and so on. But 

 really, the jurists are simply seeking to give some kind of philosophic 

 grouping and connection to these different kinds of written docu- 

 ments. But they are all written documents all of them. And they 

 do not help the United States in proving a custom, because each one 

 speaks for itself. In fact, the more treaties there are about servi- 

 tudes, the more impossible it is for the United States to prove a cus- 

 tom. The fact that the different Powers have made treaties about 

 them shows that they do not rely on custom. They negative the idea 

 that there is any custom. 



