1 82 EMPLOYMENT OF THE PLEBISCITE [480 



where the plebiscite has been employed, and it must be 

 cited as such. However, within the limits of this study 

 we include territorial changes by title other than conquest 

 on the basis of the undeniable fact that the desire of a 

 people for the expression of its wishes in the matter of a 

 change of sovereignty is or may be just as strong when the 

 transfer is affected by treaty of peaceful cession as when 

 their territory is ceded after conquest. We thus enlarge 

 the scope of precedents by the admission of all those cases 

 where the principle of self-determination has been applied 

 in the cession or transfer of territory in whatever peaceful 

 form. Still, all these precedents in their sum total do not 

 establish the principle in question as international law unless 

 such a practice becomes universal or so general that, by 

 universal or at least general consent of the Powers which 

 have established them, it is recognized as sufficiently force- 

 ful and convincing to influence new decisions plainly and 

 explicitly on the strength of these precedents of the past. 



The same forces which were instrumental in creating 

 these earlier cases are, of course, constantly at work in the 

 attempt to gain for these precedents international recogni- 

 tion and to secure final acceptance of the principle involved 

 as universal or international law. These forces are : the 

 impersonal opinion of the masses ; the personal view of 

 statesmen, philosophers and writers on international law, 

 who crystallize public opinion and deduce the growing norms 

 of international law from the accumulation of precedents; 

 and the force of analogy of constitutional and municipal 

 law as exponents of the public will. There can be no denial 

 of the fact that constitutional and municipal law have come 

 to recognize almost universally the principle of self-determi- 

 nation in all matters which lie within their sphere. In sub- 

 stantiation of this statement, one need point out only that 

 constitutional and representative government and legislation 

 by representative bodies elected by popular vote are almost 

 universal. Nor can we disclaim the influence, by analogy 

 or otherwise, of constitutional and municipal law on the 



