489] IN INTERNATIONAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL LAW I9I 



But as soon as we demand a moral standard for international 

 decisions and consequently for international law, we prac- 

 tically revive the difficulty which confronted the adherents 

 of natural law as the source of the law of nations. It is the 

 difficulty of evolving that moral standard which will find 

 approval and acceptance by all concerned. We would have 

 to satisfy a minimalist's and a maximalist's and even a 

 crank's opinion. This is, no doubt, one of the reasons why 

 up to the present day no workable code of international 

 ethics has been evolved. 



Oppenheim discusses this phase of the issue in his inter- 

 pretation of the task and method of the Science of Inter- 

 national Law. " The science of international law," he wrote 

 in 1908, " is ... a means to certain ends outside itself. 

 And these ends are the same as those for which international 

 law has grown up and is still growing — primarily, peace 

 among the nations and the governance of their intercourse 

 by what makes for order and is right and just. . . ." Ac- 

 cording to Oppenheim one of the most important tasks of 

 the science is criticism of the prevailing rules of interna- 

 tional law, and, therefore, he says, "the questions which 

 must be answered are : Is a certain rule really just and 

 adequate, or is it antiquated, so that it ought to be restricted, 

 abolished, or replaced " ? But he gives the following 

 warning: 



If even so much importance is attributed to the criticism of the 

 present condition of international law, it must never be forgotten 

 that his law is like everything else conditioned by the milieu of the 

 age. ... If anything else is dependent upon gradual historical de- 

 velopement, it is that delicate body of rules which is called inter- 

 national law. The dreamer and the schemer build their castles in 

 the air without regard to the real facts of life. The armchair poli- 

 tician and the moralist lay down the law without regard to the 

 possibilities of the age. The preacher and the philosopher defend 

 postulates which are beyond realization in practice. But the inter- 

 national jurist must not walk in the clouds; he must remain on the 

 ground of what is realizable and tangible. It is better for inter- 

 national law to remain stationary than to fall in the hands of the 

 impetuous and hotheaded reformer. He who knows how ditTuult it 

 is to unite all the members of the family of nations for the purpose 



