CLASS # 3 INTERNATIONAL LAW: INTRODUCTION Nature of International Law - (2) LAUTERPACHT, Hersch. “The function of law in the International Community”, 2000, pp.399- 407 oo87 ANALOGY OF MUNICIPAL LAW 397 Moreover, instances have been found and quoted of judicial decisions which far from making for peace have been instru- mental in producing war. The well-known case of Dred Scott v. Sanford,! decided in 1857 by the Supreme Court of the United States, has become an easy prey for this particular argument.? ‘The fact that the rule of law may break down, either generally as the result of a revolution or by infringement of its particular provisions, can hardly be regarded as throwing doubt on its effectiveness as an instrument of pre- serving peace. Constitutions may be broken by revolutions, t there has been no disposition to express this possi- bility in terms of a limitation of the law within the State, or to maintain that constitutions are not necessary. The same applies_to the law conceived as a whole or to any individual legal rule, including the legal rule expressed in the judgement of a court. Far from suggesting that, as the rulé of law may be broken, it should be dispensed with altogether, legal principle postulates that the possibility of its being disregarded is an essefttial condition of the quality of a rule as @ normative rule ef law. Absolute certainty would transform it into a law of natural science. Equally, 1 19 How. 393- a 2 See Balch, op. cit., p. 132; Brierly, The Law of Nations (1928), p. 188; Wright, Mandates under the League of Nations (1930), p. 271. Iti¢ difficult to sce what is the object of this illustration. Apparently what the reference is intended to express is that courts may become a danger to peace if they have to administer bad law, or if by corruption or otherwise they become disloyal to their judicial duty. It may be assumed that it is not suggested that courts within the State are to be dispensed with on this account. Probably the Dred Scott case is a some= What unsatisfactory example in this connexion. In this case judges of the Supreme Court held that a negro could not be a citizen of the United States and that Congress had no power to exclude slavery from any of the States of thé Union. It has been suggested that that decision was a contributory cause of the Civil War. ‘That opinion-is now almost generally rejected. See Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History, iii (1923), pp. 1-41. And see Corwin in “The American Historical Review, xxvii (1912), pp. 52-69, and M.A. Forster, Did the Decision in the-Dred Scott Case lead to the Ciul War? (1918). Probably the best surnming-up of the character of that decision is that it ‘must be written down as fa gross abuse of trust by the body which rendered it? (Corwin, op. cit., p. 68) ‘The remedy against such incidents is not the abolition of the compulsory juris~ diction of couris. Neither is this a remedy against the danger arising from the fact that ‘courts may be compelled to administer unsatisfactory Jaws. The remedy lies in the improvement of the law. Writers attaching importance to the Dred Scott case as showing the possible dangers to peace arising out of the action of courts will note with interest Lord Acton’s essay on the American. Revolution, in which, referring to the litigation following upon the validity of the so-called Writs of Assistance, he notes that ‘John Adams, who heard the judgment, wrote that “in that hour the child Independence was born”. “Lectures on Modern History (1921 cd.), p- 308.CHAPTER XX THE ‘SPECIFIC’ CHARACTER OF INTER- NATIONAL LAW AND THE RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY I ~ The Nature of International Law as a Problem of General TFurisprudence § 8. In General. It is typical of the quality. of the argument advanced in support of the existing rule of international Jaw on the question of the judicial function that it is based om two contradictory assertions—frequently adduced by the same writers. One is that as the rule of law within the State is Hmited, there is nothing extraordinary in suchadimitation of the place of law among States. This aspect-ef the ques- tion has been discussed in the preceding chapter. The other isthat although compulsory judicial settlement-of disputes is a general rule within the State, that rule cannot claim validity among States in view of the so-called specific char. acter of international law7 It is maintained that in this, as in other matters, the amalogy with municipal law is not decisive, and that while the obligatory jurisdiction of courts may be a general principle of municipal law, it is not necessarily a principle of general jurisprudence. The com- -pulsory competence of the organs of the lawto adjudicate upon disputes between the members of a political society has become in the minds of many one of those mischievous analogies with private law—like State servitudes, or the principle of fault in determining responsibility, or the vitiating effect of duress on the validity of contracts—which threaten to obscure the correct appreciation of the specific character of international law. The obligatory jurisdiction of courts is represented as a peculiarity of municipal law, and warnings are sounded against a lack of criticism and imagina- tion elevating that peculiarity to a general principle of law. The reasoning of those who hold this view is as follows: The fact that a rule is a general principle of municipal law does not make it a general principle of law. ‘The very admission that international law is Jaw, although in certain aspects, regarded by municipal lawyers as fundamental, it4oo | “SPECIFIC” CHARACTER OF INTERNATIONAL LAW yy differs radically from municipal law, shows that, far from being determined in its capacity as a body of legal rules by the general principles of municipal law, it may contribute to the higher synthesis of truly general principles of law, of which municipal law is the one and international Jaw the other constituent element. ‘This applies not only to particular rules and principles, but also to the very conception of law. Municipal law, it is said, is based on the principle of subon, dination, i-€. of subjection of persons to legal rules, imposed irrespective of their will, whereas international law is a ‘law of co-ordination’ in which rules of law owe their existence to obligations voluntarily undertaken. The obligatory juris. diction of courts is one of the manifestations of a ‘law of subordination’ and therefore incompatible with the true ~ Character of international law. We are thus confronted with one of the main problems of jurisprudence in general and of philosophy of international jaw in particular. We shall have to examine, first, what substance there is in the idea of the independence of inter= national law from the-conception of law as developed in municipal jurisprudence, and, secondly, how far theories of international law, based on this dualism, can be regarded as consistent with the legal nature of international law. For if they do in fact constitute a denial of international law=— and it will be submitted that that is their practical effect— then their relevance to the question of the place of law and courts in international society may be regarded as disproved. It is for this reason that it is necessary to consider the various forms in which the negative attitude towards international Jaw conceived as a body of legal rules may express itself § 9. The Denial of the Existence of International Law ‘The number of writérs who deny, without any qualifications the existence of international law is comparatively small. In their view the relations of States are—in effect—governed by rules neither legal nor moral, but by laws regulating the mutual relations of physical forces. Thus Hobbes found in the relations of States the historical demonstration of what, even in his own view, would otherwise have been a mere hypothesis, namely, the existence among men of a pure state of nature,’ coextensive with an entire absence of legal seeiiiathan, Part I, chap. xii: ‘But though there had never been any time, wherein particular men were in a condition of war one against another; yet89 ‘DENIERS’ OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 4or regulation. Spinoza followed him closely." In the middle of the nineteenth century, Lasson, a prominent German writer, gave Clear expression to the same negative attitude towards international law.? He found followers both before and after the World War.? For some of these writers this negative attitude towards international law has been merely a link in the chain of an argument calculated to support certain juridical or philosophical theories in relation to the political theory of the State. This was notably the case with Hobbes and Spinoza. With others it is an expression and a in all times, kings and persons of sovereign authority, because of their indepen- dency, are in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of gladiators; having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another; that is their forts, garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of their kingdoms; and con- tinual spyes upon their neighbours; which is a posture of War.” ‘This is the true meaning of Hobbes’s identification of the Jaw of nature-with the law of nations: ‘Concerning the offices of one sovereign to another, which-are comprehended. in that law, which is commonly catied: the law of nations, I need not say any thing in this place; because the law-of nations and the law of nature, is the same things... . And the same law, that dictateth to-men that have no civil overnment, what they ought todo, and what to avoid in regard of one another, Efctateth the same to commonwealths, that is, to the consciences of sovereign princes, and sovereign assemblies’ (ibid., Part II, chap. xxx (in fine)). And see Part IT, chap. x (in fine) of his De Corpore Politico (1640) for a clear statement to the effect that ‘that which is the law of nature between man and man before the constitution of commonwealth, it is the law of nations between savercign and sovercign, after’. And see also the well-known Dedication to Elementa philo~ sophiea de’ Cive (1642) for the juxtaposition of the principles howto homini deuis and homo homini lupus, the first obtaining within the State, the second in the relations of States. — ¥ See Lauterpacht in BY. (1927), pp. 89 et seq-,-and the literature there quoted; Verdross in Zeitschrift fir offentliches Recht, vii (3927), pp. 100 et seq. * Prinzip und Zukunft des Volkarrechts (1897); System der Rechtsphilosophie (1882). He says, in the former work: “Two States confront each other like two physical forces. it is true that they are persons endowed with intelligence enabling them to recognize what is advantageous to them and to act accordingly. But there is no other link between them than their common interests, and no form of moral will Jimits their attitude of selfishness’ (p. 56). And he says in the latter work: ‘International law lacks the quatity-of true law . . . not only provisionally and for the duration of ® lower stage of civilization, but permanently’ (p. 402). Seydel, a distinguished German constitutional lawyer, gave expression to the same views in almost identical terms: Grundztige einer allgemeinen Staatslehre (1873), BB, Bhs 32. - o . , 3 Bee, for instance, Binder, Philosophie des Rechts (1925), pp. 550-93; Hold- Ferneck, Lehrbuch des Vélkerreckts (1930). Professor Hold-Ferneck doubts whether there is in the modern world any measure of cultural or legal unity to serve as a basis for international law (pp. 23, 24). He is of the opinion that a true com- munity of law between States is inconceivable (p. 86); that the relation between sovereign States is necessarily one of enmity, international law being merely the expression of a modus vivendi in the permanent state of latent warfare (pp. 12, 86, 88); that obligatory arbitration is inconsistent with the right of self-preserva- tion, and any large measure of acceptance of the commitments of obligatory arbitration constitutes a departure ‘from the wide and clear paths dictated by “the very nature of the State’ (p. 151). 3964 pd402 ‘SPECIFIC’ CHARACTER OF INTERNATIONAL, LAW vr justification of an attitude of extreme nationalism, and of a deliberate negation of the existence or of the practicability or of the need for an organized international community under the reign of law. With others it is a denunciation of the predominant attitude of complacent disregard of realities and of the actual reign of force in an admittedly transient stage in the development of international society.! § 10. The Denial of the Legal Nature of International Law. A second group of writers while not denying the obligatory force of the rules governing the relations between States, have denied to them the character of legal rules. Thus Austin regarded rules of international law—conceived as an independent system of law?—as ‘positive moral rules which are laws improperly-so-called’, ic. ‘laws set or imposed by general opinion’,? and pointed to ‘the greatest logical error ofall . .. committed by many continental jurists, who include in public law, not only the law of political conditions, of crimes, and of civil and criminal procedure, but also inter- national law; which is not positive law at all, but a branch of positive morality’.* But he did not deny that these rules 1Sce Lunstedt, Superstition or Rationality in Action for Peace? Arguments against Fotnding a World Peace on the Common Sense of Justice. A Criticism of Jurisprudence (1925). See Nelson, Rechtswissenschaft ohne Recht (1913). And see also Fricker in Zettschrift fiir die gesamte Staatswissenschaft, xxviti (1872), pp. 90 et seq., and 347 ct scq.; ibid., xciv (1878), pp. 368 et seq.; and Van Vollenhoven, The Three Stages in the Evolution of the Law of Nations (1919). 2 Lectures on Jurisprudence or the Philosophy of Posilive Law (5th ed., 1885), i. 182. 2 Ibid. ii. 754. ' * The denial of the legal nature of international law conceived as an indepen- dent system of law is not incompatible, and must not be confused with the affirmation of the legal character of some ofits rules, namely, of those which are administered as legal rules expressly adopted by the State and its courts. Austin distinguished clearly between these two aspects of the question. He pointed out repeatedly that ‘although positive international morality. (so-called inter- national law) ... has no force within one nation... a nation may adopt it and enforce it as positive law within itself” (ii. 635). ‘This point of view is cleatly expressed in Mortensen v. Peters in the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland _ (8 Session Cases 93): ‘It is a trite observation that there is no such thing asa standard of international law extraneous to the domestic law of a kingdom, to appeal may be made. International law, so far as this court is concerned, is the body of doctrine regarding the international rights and duties of States which has been adopted and made part of the law of Scotland’ It is generally accepted by writers on English law in so far as they touch on international law See Stephen, A History of the Criminal Law of England, ii (1883), p. 95. See also Willoughby in 4.7. ii (1908), pp. 357-65, who adopts the same attitude. With these writers international law a3 a body of legal rules seems to be coextensive with rules of municipal law bearing upon relations between States and inter- national relations generally. They are what some German writers call ‘external constitutional law’ (dusseres Staatsrecht). This is practically the view of theS10 INTERNATIONAL LAW AS A ‘WEAK LAW? 403 were binding and that they were enforced by moral sanctions like fear of provoking general hostility and reprobation for the violation of maxims generally received and respected. Recently, Felix Somlé, one of the ablest adherents of the Austinian method on the continent of Europe, without denying the binding force of the rules commonly referred to as international law, denied that they partake of the character of law2 In his view it is not the element of com- pulsion which is lacking in international Jaw—an element which he sees in the part played by the Great Powers and the Concert of Europe in the Iast hundred years. He defines law as the rulesissued by asupreme power which are habitually obeyed, comprehensive and permanent. Accordingly, the factors which in his opinion destroy the Iegal nature of the rules of international law are the scarcity of its rules (which cover the least essential of the relations between nations), the precariousness of their enforcement, and the insufficient degreeOf obedience shown to them. “This view, however,” says Soml6é, ‘does not deny the existence of international law’; and he adds: “The statement that a rule is only a rule of international law, does not mean that it ought not to be obeyed.’ _He therefore expresses the opinion that the proper designation of tules_governing the relations between States would be ‘international’ or ‘supra-national’ rules. He insists that the difference is not one merely of terminology, for, he Says, if we describe the rules of so-called international Jaw as rules of law we thereby obscure the conception of law as generally used.4 z s i § 11. International Law as a necessarily_*Weak Law’, Another group of writers, without denying the binding force ‘of international law, are in a position to assert its legal nature doctrine of self-limitation discussed below. For a recent affirmation of inter- national law as external municipal law see Wenzel, Juristische (1920). See also Akzin, Les problémes fondamentaux di droit interr (192% T Tbid. i. 2 es he Grundlehre (2nd, unrevised, ed., 1927), pp. 153-73. 2 Op. cit., p. 169. * With this view should be contrasted that of Burckhardt who, without questioning the legal nature of international law, denies to it the quality of positively binding rules of law. They are, he says, dictated by the moval natuse of the State and by the necessities of international relations, but, in view of the absence of an international organization with legislative and judicial organs, there is no positive international law, i.e. law whose content is certain and un, disputably binding. See Die Organisation der Rechtsgemeinschaft (1927), pp. 374— 16. See also for a short statement of the same view Die Unvollkommenheit, des Vetierahus (1919). pd2404 ‘SPECIFIC’ CHARACTER OF INTERNATIONAL LAW yy only by dint of the argument that it is a weak law analogous to that obtaining among primitive communities; that these undoubted shortcomings do not seriously imperil the legal nature of international law; that they are the necessary consequence of the existence of a community of sovereign States; and that to remedy them would in effect mean the termination of international law and its transformation into internal or federal law. ‘The writings of Oppenheim are perhaps the best instance of this school of thought. In them an idealistic defence of the legal nature of international law— conceived as weak law—is coupled with the repeated asser- tions that its shortcomings are of a permanent nature, for there ‘is not, and never will be, a central authority above the several States’! This attitude is one most generally adopted by international lawyers. It is held by writers as wide apart ~as Holland, Zitelmann,? and De Louter.* Some writers even —,* Vol. i, p. 288. And see ibid., pp. 15-15, for an expasition of the legal —character of international law notwithstanding its being a weak law, ‘The view that there cannot and ‘never will’ be an organized avifas maxima cxercisinp authority over States is a persistent feature of Oppenheim’s treatise, But it may —be doubted whether this ‘immutable feature’ of international society would not have disappeared from the treatise if untimely death had not prevented Oppen~ heim from effecting the change. That he has done so in substance may be seen from his instructive chapter on the ‘Defects and Merits of the Constitution of the League’ written in 1919 and left unrevised in the subsequent editions of his work. While referring to the articles of the Covenant providing for the possi. bility of a State leaving the League by voluntary withdrawal, or as the result of expulsion, or in consequence of its dissent from a duly ratified amendment, —Oppenheim pointed out that these provisions constitute_a real defect, since ‘there ought to be no possibility for a member to leave the League, of to be expelled therefrom’ and that ‘a recalcitrant member should, if necessary, be — coerced by force to submit to the decisions of the League, and to fulfil its duties —(p. 352). Itis clear that a League so constituted would be ‘a central authority ~~ above the several States’. Oppenheim also regarded-as-another real defect of —the Covenant the absence, in Article 13, of a provision for compulsory juris« diction of the Permanent Court. And sec for a similar-change of attitude by ow. of Jurisprudence (6th ed., 1893), p- 339—International law, be says, ‘is the vanishing point of Jurisprudence; since it Tacks any arbiter of di puted questions, save public opinion, beyond and above the disputant parties themselves, and since, in proportion as it tends to become assimilated to true law by the aggregation of States into a larger society, it ceases to be itself, and is: transmuted into the public law of a federal government’. 3 Die Unvollkommenheit des Valkerrechts (1919). The present shortcomings of international Jaw, he admits, could be removed by the League of Nations be- coming the civitas maxima and exercising judicial and executive functions over the States. ‘But then’, he says, ‘this would no longer be international law, seeing that the latter presupposes logically the existence of sovercign States’ (p. 53). + Le dwit international public positif (1920, French trans. from the Durch), i. 59: ‘Le droit international n’a pas de législateur, et, qui plus est, n’en aura Jamais. Un pouvoir législatif ne saurait exister que dans un Etat, Dés que le droit international cesse d’étre un droit entre des Etats souvergins, pour devenir§u INTERNATIONAL LAW AS A ‘WEAK LAW? 405 go to the length of maintaining that although most of these permanent deficiencies constitute legal shortcomings, they contribute towards making international law a superior type of law from the moral and social point of view.’ The historian of legal thought will note with interest that ata certain stage of the development of international law its notional attractiveness was regarded by some as a sufficient compensation for its substantial shor tcomings. It is from this side that come most of the current ‘defences’ of international law which, it is said, is primitive law and must remain so under the penalty of its own extinction. The absence of a central-legislative authority; the absence of tribunals endowed_with compulsory jurisdiction to settle disputes; the absence of agencies enforcing the law; the absence of clear—and detailed rules—all these features of existing international-aw are explained by what are believed — to be the characteristics of priniitive society. =f § 12. The So-called Specific Character of International —_ Law. The principal objection to some_of these moder explanations of the weaknesses of the law of nations? is that they pave the way for the most modern form of denying international law, namely, for the negation of it by means of the assertion of-its ‘specific’ character as a body of law, For there are two ways of viewing international law asa — weak law. One,-discussed in the preceding section, is the basis of the theory-which, although viewing the weaknesses of international law as necessarily and’ permanently con-__— nected with the existence of the international society ; of States, admits that they are shortcomings from the more general legal point of view. But according to another view. the so-called shortcomings of international law are merely le droit d'un pouvoir qui leur est supérieur et auquel tous sont soumis, les Etats perdent leur souveraincté et le droit international se métamorphose en droit public d’un Etat mondial.’ *The law of nations is of a distinctly different character from municipal law. It may truly be affirmed that the /ex gentium is of a more elevated nature. Apply ing as it does inter gentes, it does not appeal to the policeman; it appeals to reason itself, to the sense of equity, to a higher moral consciousness’: Philip Marshall Brown, International Realities (1917), p. 104. See also Sauer, Lehrbuch der Rechts und Sozialphilosophie (1929), p. 290, to the effect that although international Jaw is deficient qua law it is a superior cultural phenomenon: ‘From the cultural point of view international law transcends municipal law-as based on compul- sion. “It aspires, from the limited domain of strict Jaw, to an affirmation, as a matter of moral conviction, of the cultural community of mankind? 5 * For a criticism of it see below, p. 433.406 ‘SPECIFIC’ CHARACTER OF INTERNATIONAL LAW yj the manifestation of its specific character. They are defects, it is said, only so long as they are viewed from the narrow perspective of municipal law, whereas in fact they are a re- minder of the existence of a wider conception of law of which municipal law is only an historical category. Thus we find Westlake suggesting that the controversy, whether rules of international law are rules of law or of morality, can be solved if we decline ‘to treat the law of the land as the only - proper kind of jural law, for then, while keeping law distinct from morality, we shall not encourage an undue attribution to international law of the characters only appropriate to the Jaw-ef the land’.! It is said that ‘the orthodox concept of Jaw is not sacrosanct’; that ‘it is necessary to inquire whether it-eught not to be adapted to the requirements of actual life’ (actual life meaning“ for this purpose the existence of rules called international faw);? and that the proper way to approach the philosophy of law is international law ‘through which one is in the position to follow the delicate problem of the creation and the development of law’. It is thus that we arrive at the central problem in the question of the determination of the legal nature of inter— —national law. The answer to this question obviously depends upon the conception oflaw which we adopt as the basis of __the investigation. To what conception of law must inter- national law conform in order that it can accurately be described as law? Is it a conception of law deduced from the positive legal order Within the State, i.c. a conception of “general jurisprudence in modern society? Or is it a concep: tion of law made so-elastic as to embrace the body of rules regulating at present the mutual relations of modern States? Shall international law be guided, while admitting its own shortcomings, by the generally accepted notion of law which few would venture-to-deny but for the necessity of defending the legal nature of international law? Or shall it broaden ? Collected Papers, p. 14. However, Westlake himself saw the dangers of this method of approach, and admitted that ‘if we give the name of law to anything which we so discover in a remote state of society before we have fixed in our minds what we mean by that name, we beg the question, and have no security that our language has any consistent, or therefore useful, sense’ (ibid., p. xxii). The whole trend of his work justifies the observation of Oppenheim that ‘he belonged to the legal school of international jurists who, in centradistinction to the members of the diplomatic school, desire International Law to develop more or less on the lines of Municipal Law’ (ibid., p. x). 2 Mayer in Archiv des dffentlichen Rechts, xxviii (1918), p. 14. 3 Sauer, Grundlagen der Gesellschaft (1924), p. 431-§i2 THE LAW OF ‘CO-ORDINATION’ 407 it and impart to it some of its elasticity? Shall international Jaw aim at improvement by trying to bring its rules within the compass of the generally accepted notion of law, or shall it disintegrate it and thus deprive itself of a concrete ideal of perfection?! ‘Before answering these questions it is necessary to consider the doctrine in which the theory of the specific character of international law’ has found its current expres- sion and which has served as a most powerful argument in support of the existing rule of international law on the question of judicial settlement. This is the so-called theory of international law as a law of co-ordinate entities or, shortly, as a ‘law of co-ordination’. Il International Law as a Law of Co-ordinate Entities § 13. Subordination and ‘Co-ordination’ in Law. It will be — shown in the examination of the doctrine of co-ordination, which follows, that that doctrine, as represented by some — of its exponents, amounts to a clear negation of international law as a body of binding rules of conduct, whilst as represented by others, it does not differ, its terminology notwithstanding, — from a theory which claims that-intermational law is objec- tively binding upon States independently of their will. In either case the doctrine must be dismissed as irrelevant to — the question of the place of law and of the judicial function in international relations. The notion of international law— as a law of co-ordination has recently been increasingly—— adopted by writers, but there has been no attempt to elabo- rate itin detail. Ina recent text-book of Hatschek? we find a restatement of the theory of co-ordination, but the attempt — is not particularly illuminating. He defines international — Jaw as a legal system based on co-ordination. This, he says, means that, unlike municipal law which is based on subor- dination of persons to the legal rule, there is in international law no superior will which imposes the law. There is no * Itwill be noted that the question thus put transcends the limits ofa problem of international law. It becomes a problem of general jurisprudence, a problem, that is to say, whether the conception of law should’ be broadened by the in. clusion of a generalized norm of conduct based on the relations of sovereign States as at present constituted. * Vélkerrecht als System rechtlich bedeutsamer Staatsakte (1923). An English trans- ation by Manning of the abridged version of this book appeared in 1930. , oy