In a learned and interesting article on "The International Status of the British Self-governing Dominions," Mr. Malcolm M. Lewis discusses the sovereignty" of the self-governing constituents of our Empire. General Smuts's declaration that the doctrine that the British Parliament is the sovereign power for the Empire no longer holds good" is regarded by Mr. Lewis as going too far. Rather, in the author's view, these dominions are "partners" in the Empire, pledged to pursue a common partnership policy. Mr. C. Ll. Bullock's article on Angary" is of special interest and value. A perusal of this very exhaustive history and exposition of the topic is likely to correct the Englishman's tendency to conceive Requisition by the Crown too exclusively as a feudal incident or a common law exercise of the prerogative. Noticing references in this article to T. W. Fulton's The Sovereignty of the Seas, we are led to wonder how it is that this very valuable work is to be seen so infrequently in the hands of international lawyers. Dr. W. R. Bisschop's article on " Immunity of States in Maritime Law" is also one of great practical interest. The learned author regards it as highly desirable, in the interest of the democratic development of international law, that the English doctrine of the immunity of the State should be abandoned and the continental rule modified to such an extent that immunity from jurisdiction should cease, if not altogether, in any event as far as maritime law is concerned. This end could be attained either by international agreement, as attempted by the Institut in 1891, or with the aid of the Permanent Court of International Justice at the Hague. In "Enemy Ships in Port at the Outbreak of War," Professor Pearce Higgins, after dealing shortly with the position of such ships apart from the Hague Convention, and then considering the question of the Convention as regards other belligerents in the late war, proceeds to an interesting discussion of the judgment of the Privy Council in the cases of The Blonde, Prosper, and Hercules. In this country, where there is so little periodical literature devoted to international law, the Year-book undoubtedly supplies an imperative need, and so far is supplying it well. W. S. M. K. THE THIRTIETH CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL LAW ASSOCIATION.1 ONE volume has hitherto been sufficient for the report of a conference of this Association. On this occasion, however, the report requires two quite bulky volumes. The reason for this is to be found in the work of the Maritime Law Committee, the proceedings of which occupy exclusively the second volume. Indeed, that work immediately made the conference historic, for, guided if not controlled, by its diplomatic 1 The International Law Association: Report of the Thirtieth Conference held at the Peace Palace, The Hague, 1921. (London: Sweet & Maxwell.) 2 vols. chairman, Sir Henry Duke, the committee succeeded, after a controversy and negotiation of some forty years' standing, in harmonizing the conflicting and diverse interests of shipowners, shippers, bankers and underwriters, and settling the already world-famous Hague Rules of 1921, which define the risks to be assumed by sea carriers under a bill of lading. In adopting these Rules, the Association hopes that it has provided a most useful example in the voluntary settlement of a question of universal trade by international co-operation and mutual consent. It is in this way that very practical and important steps are taken towards the ideal of international unity and peace. First place must, of course, be given on this occasion to the work of the Maritime Law Committee. But the Association has more than twenty other committees at work, and merely to name but a fewInternational Arbitration, Aerial Law, Copyright, Chemical Warfare and Nationality and Naturalization-is quite sufficient to indicate the vast scope and the immense importance of the Association's activities. And a glance at the special topics which engaged the attention of the Conference is further evidence of the great influence of the Association for international right. In the region of what might be called high politics there are juridical problems in relation to the League of Nations, prisoners of war and their treatment, combatants and non-combatants, national minorities and the future laws of war. And to descend to the more material, in the sense that these matters touch so closely the every-day life in times of peace, a number of subjects in Private International Law were dealt with by the Conference. Of these may be mentioned Foreign Judgments, Domicile and Bankruptcy Jurisdiction, Multiple Taxation, the Sale of Goods and Contractual Capacity. The Conference-it appears from the Report-was royally entertained. A special deputation was received by the Queen. And the great Municipalities-the Hague, Amsterdam, Rotterdam-and the great commercial corporations-railway and petroleum especially-spared no effort or expense to recreate the delegates in the intervals of their toil. But, apart from the records of formal business and some slight allusion to the inevitable lighter side of the proceedings, these two volumes would make a valuable addition to the library of the student of international law. AN UNRIVALLED TEXTBOOK.1 W. S. M. K. Ir is a melancholy task for the British international lawyer to review a work on international law published in the United States. Comparisons are suggested to his mind which are by no means favourable to this International Law, chiefly as interpreted and applied by the United States. By W. Cheney Hyde. (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1922.) 2 vols. Price $25 net. country. In America international law is regarded with a respect and a seriousness which has resulted in the undoubted fact that American publications on the subject are, in weight and accuracy of matter, in method of arrangement, and in attractiveness of presentation and appearance, without rivals throughout the world. The present work is no exception to, indeed is a conspicuous instance of, the rule. While it is undeniably true that international law is, in so far as it consists in the agreement or the universal practice of States, something objective and ascertainable, yet there are considerable tracts of what is commonly regarded as law in which so much variety of action prevails, that it is difficult if not impossible to say that there is a rule of international law upon the subject. Take, for example, the practice of States (socalled international law) regarding jurisdiction over acts committed on board merchant-vessel A in the territorial waters of State B; or the conflicting practice of States, in certain branches of the law of prize, such as continuous voyage or blockade. In such cases it is true to speak of the British or the American view of international law. The author of this book has written a treatise, of great learning, accuracy, and scientific power, upon the American view of what are the rules of international law, paying, of course, special regard to the special part which has from time to time been played by the United States in international controversies. Almost no praise is too high for this admirable work, which will take its place as a classic among treatises upon international law. In reading such a work as this, the mind naturally turns to such distinctively American matters as the Monroe doctrine. It is the author's view that this doctrine is now part of international law, having become so by virtue of a tacit acquiescence in it by the other States. This is scarcely an acceptable conclusion. The Monroe doctrine is an assertion of political interest, an axiom of American diplomacy, as announced in authoritative fashion to the world. It has nothing to do with law. It is hard to see how the purely negative attitude of other States can have the effect supposed by the author of transmuting what is in essence a purely political question into a rule of law. Only in one way, as it would appear to the writer of this note, could such a change be effected, and that is if the conduct of the other States and their attitude towards the Monroe doctrine is such as to amount in law to an agreement to refrain from exercising, in relation to the American continent, other than the United States, certain rights which in law are indubitable. Such an agreement hardly is to be inferred from the course of dealing with the Monroe doctrine which has hitherto prevailed. In regard to the Allied "blockade" of neutral shipping, before the entry of the United States into the late war, the author is temperate and judicial. He declines (and makes out a good case in support of his view) to accept the facile assumption that the Allied blockade was no more stringent than the action of the Northern States during the American Civil War. He deals with all the decisions on the point by the British Prize Court, and the Judicial Committee, and correspondingly quotes from or refers to the diplomatic interchanges between this country and the United States. This part of the work, like every other, is a miracle of exhaustive comprehensiveness of treatment, of rich learning, ripe and temperate judgment, and orderly presentation. The world of international law is the richer for this work, which is the most noteworthy and memorable of modern times. CYRIL M. PICCIOTTO. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW.1 Mr. THE present year has been marked by two events of great importance to those interested in the conflict of laws in that the great treatises of ? Dicey and of Westlake have both been reissued in new editions. Bentwich has done his pious work, as might have been expected, supremely well. Recent extensions or modifications of the law have been duly incorporated and worked into the original text with skill and the minimum of displacement of the author's original work. The most recent decisions on such questions as the date upon which damages in a foreign currency are convertible into sterling, the defence of diplomatic privilege, the effect of the war upon actions on negotiable instruments against acceptors or drawers, and, indeed, on all the very many topics which have been specially brought into prominence by the war and reviewed in the light of modern conditions, are all mentioned and admirably dealt with in the text. Mr. Bentwich deserves the thanks of all that increasing number of persons concerned in the exposition of legal principles or with their application in actual practice, who are called upon to deal with the conflict of laws. Sir Erskine Holland's Letters on War and Neutrality are now brought up to date and contain his views on various questions of international law raised by the war and the consequent settlement. His judgments lack nothing in vigour. The seventh volume of the Grotius Society's Transactions is chiefly noteworthy for a remarkable paper by Mr. W. Latey, in which he deals, with great learning and reasoning power, with the law of the air; and for another paper, equally remarkable (though not perhaps in quite the same sense) by Dr. Bellot, in which he, with apparent seriousness, propounds the thesis that a merchant vessel possesses, under international law, the right to attack a warship of the enemy. C. M. P. 1 Westlake's Private International Law. Sixth edition, by N. Bentwich. (London: Sweet & Maxwell, Ltd., 1922.) Letters on War and Neutrality. By Sir Thomas Erskine Holland. (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1921.) Transactions of the Grotius Society, vol. vii. (London: Sweet & Maxwell, Ltd.) THE EQUALITY OF STATES IN INTERNATIONAL LAW.1 THIS work was originally written as a doctor's thesis. It presents the principle of the equality of States as it is propounded in the theory of international law, and as it is affected by common usage. Within the latter consideration, Dr. Dickinson takes account of the organic constitution of the State and of conditions and aspects of external relationship that limit international legal capacity. In that part of the book which shows probably most knowledge and acumen, although it is the least useful in practice, the position taken is, that in historical origins the idea of State equality did not come into the law of nations through the doctrine of sovereignty (on which Bodin is here imperfectly expounded), but came through that “important trilogy of ideas which had dominated speculation since the age of antiquity"—namely, the theories of natural law, natural equality and the state of nature. The author's presentation of these theories is clear and well-sustained, both in themselves and for their bearing upon his subject. He analyses the principle of State equality in the writings of modern publicists and in documentary sources of the past century. Further, he adds considerably to the value of his book by giving not only a well-prepared bibliography, but also precise references in his footnotes, and some pertinent extracts. He has not resisted the temptation to add a supplementary chapter on the Peace of Paris, from which he draws the lesson that it tends to limit the political equality of States. Students of the history of political thought are familiar, or should be, with the recurring confusion between "right" and "power." The distinction between these might with advantage have been kept more clearly and persistently before the author in his exposition of the views of authorities. We think also that gain would have resulted from attention to the reason in the mind of a writer like W. E. Hall for almost shunning the use of the term "equality" and preferring the word “independence," carefully and helpfully defined. States, sovereign and independent, are among themselves on a footing of juridical equality. The rest in practice, policy and power; and it is in this sphere that we should have welcomed a more substantial contribution to learning and political interpretation by Dr. Dickinson. Not least for his own manner of treating his subject, it is necessary to discover the bearings of the actual "State System" of Europe at the time, for example, of the Peace of Westphalia (too slenderly touched by the author), and almost throughout the eighteenth century, with its "testament of the old Europe." It is necessary to see how dominant or stereotyped conceptions were 1 The Equality of States in International Law (Harvard Studies in Jurisprudence, vol. iii). By Edwin De Witt Dickinson, Ph.D., J.D., Professor of Law in the University of Michigan. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920. Pp. xiii +424. Price 175. net.) |