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FORCE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW.

5. International law is a part of the municipal law of states.

International law is generally recognized as a part of the law of the land, and is accordingly enforced by municipal authority.

The Constitution of the United States provides that Congress shall have power "to define and punish offences against the Laws of Nations." 30

"Congress has power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper to carry into execution the powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States (article 1, section 8, clause 18); and the government of the United States has been vested exclusively with the power of representing the nation in all its intercourse with foreign countries. It alone can 'regulate commerce with foreign Nations' (article 1, section 8, clause 3); make treaties and appoint ambassadors and other public ministers and consuls (article 2, section 2, clause 2). A state is expressly prohibited from entering into any 'treaty, alliance, or confederation' (article 1, section 10, clause 1). Thus all official intercourse between a state and foreign nations is prevented, and exclusive authority for that purpose is given to the United States. The national government is in this way responsible to foreign nations for all violations by the United States of their international obligations, and because of this Congress is expressly authorized 'to define and punish * * offences against the law of nations' (article 1, section 8, clause 10).

"The law of nations requires every national government to use 'due diligence' to prevent a wrong being done within its own dominion to any other nation with which it is at peace, or to the people thereof.

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"It remains only to consider those questions which present the point whether, in enacting a statute to define and punish an offense against the law of nations, it is necessary, in order 'to define' the offense, that it be declared in the statute itself

30 Article 1, § 8, cl. 10.

to be 'an offense against the law of nations.' This statute defines the offense, and if the thing made punishable is one which the United States are required by their international obligations to use due diligence to prevent, it is an offense against the law of nations. Such being the case, there is no more need of declaring in the statute that it is such an offense than there would be in any other criminal statute to declare that it was enacted to carry into execution any other particular power vested in the government of the United States. Whether the offense as defined is an offense against the law of nations depends on the thing done, not on any declaration to that effect by Congress." 31

The opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States is "that the laws of the United States ought not, if it be avoidable, so to be construed as to infract the common principles and usages of nations or the general doctrines of national law." 82 An act of Congress ought never to be construed to violate the law of nations, if any other possible construction remains, and, consequently, can never be construed to violate neutral rights, or to affect neutral commerce further than is warranted by the law of nations as understood in this country." The intercourse of the United States "with foreign nations and its policy in regard to them, are placed by the Constitution of the United States in the hands of the government, and its decisions upon these subjects are obligatory on every citizen of the Union." 3 "Foreign municipal laws must indeed be proved as facts; but it is not so with the law of nations." The law of nations "in its full extent is part of the law of this state, and is to be collected from the practice of different nations, and the authority of writers." 35 In 1899

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31 United States v. Arjona, 120 U. S. 479, 7 Sup. Ct. 628, 30 L. Ed. 728.

32 Talbot v. Seeman, 1 Cranch, 1, 2 L. Ed. 15; The Amelia, 4 Dall. 34, 1 L. Ed. 730; The Charming Betsy, 2 Cranch, 64, 2 L. Ed. 208. 33 The Charming Betsey, 2 Cranch, 64, 2 L. Ed. 208; Ex parte Blumer, 27 Tex. 740.

34 Kennett v. Chambers, 14 How. 38, 14 L. Ed. 316.

35 Respublica v. De Longchamps, 1 Dall. 111, 1 L. Ed. 59; The Scotia, 14 Wall. 170, 20 L. Ed. 822. Vide, also, Thirty Hogsheads of Sugar v. Boyle, 9 Cranch, 191, 3 L. Ed. 701; United States v. The

the United States Supreme Court said that it would be bound "to take judicial notice of, and give effect to," a rule of international law, "in absence of any treaty or other public act of their government in relation to the matter." 36

Active, 24 Fed. Cas. 759; The Nereide, 9 Cranch, 388, 3 L. Ed. 769; The New York, 175 U. S. 187, 20 Sup. Ct. 67, 44 L. Ed. 126.

36 The Paquete Habana, 175 U. S. 677, 20 Sup. Ct. 290, 44 L. Ed. 320.

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PERSONS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW

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