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COMMERCIAL INSURANCE AND ADMIRALTY LAW.

It was proposed by the Convener that the Marine Insurance Act, Chapter 41, 6 Ed. VII. (1906) Imperial, "An Act to Codify the Laws Relating to Marine Insurance" should be enacted throughout the Dominion.

It was considered by the Committee that this suggestion should stand over for consideration by the Committee for the ensuing year.

All of which is respectfully submitted.

A. H. MACNEILL,

Vancouver, B.C.,

August 17th, 1922.

Convener.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL LAW.

1. INTRODUCTORY.

There have, since the last meeting of the Association, been two remarkable events in the field of public international law. The Permanent Court of International Justice has been finally constituted and has settled its procedure. For the first time there, therefore, exists in the world a completely organized international Court of Justice. The treaties drawn up at the Washington Conference are also of first rate importance. Apart from their specific declarations confirming and extending rules of international law, they indicate a hopeful tendency in international thinking in the direction of the substitution of a sense of the solidarity of civilized peoples for a specifically national outlook based fundamentally upon necessarily restricted ideas of national interest and honour.

2. THE WASHINGTON TREATIES.

The Washington Conference opened on November 11th, 1921, and its labours were concluded on the 6th of February following, the remarkable results reached in these three months being embodied in five treaties and twelve resolutions. Of these, those most directly germane to the subject assigned to this Committee are the Treaty whereby the United States of America, the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan, made certain declarations with regard to the rules of international law to which they bound themseles to adhere and invited the adherence of other powers, and the connected resolution in favour of the establishment of a Commission to which should be referred for consideration the question whether, in addition to the rules declared by the Treaty, other changes ought to be made in the law of nations regulating the conduct of war.

The Treaty, after declaring that the established rules requiring merchant vessels to be visited and searched before being attacked, and for insuring the safety of their crews, were binding as well on submarines as on other vessels, added to international law the important provision that individuals responsible for the breach of these rules should be punishable as for piracy, whether or not the breach was committed in pursuance

of orders from superior authority. Moreover, the signatory powers recognized "the practical impossibility of using submarines as commerce destroyers to the end that the

prohibition" of their use for this purpose "shall be universally accepted as part of the law of nations," a prohibition which the signatory powers themselves adopt as between themselves. Finally, the pre-existing prohibition of the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases is re-stated and agreed

upon.

The extent to which agreements, imposing limitations upon the adoption, by powers engaged in life and death struggles, of specific methods of warfare, are enforceable depends, of course, upon the comparative strength of the awakened conscience of the neutral world and the national sentiment of the belligerents concerned, but there can be no doubt of the practical effect of the remaining four treaties entered into at Washington. These do not purport to change the general rules of international law, but they do indicate very definitely a new method of approaching international problems. The naval Treaty, whereby the United States, the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan mutually agree to submit to specific and detailed limitations upon their respective naval forces, and to forego the fortification of their respective insular Pacific possessions at least until December 31st, 1936, is of first rate practical importance to the maintenance of the peace of the world, particularly in view of the provisions for future conferences to reconsider the situation in the light of the circumstances of the time, and for the automatic extension of the agreement until two years' notice of denunciation has been given by one of the parties to it. Likewise, the Treaty between the United States, the British Empire, France and Japan on the subject of their Pacific insular possessions and dominions has a similar high importance. That each of the states concerned should agree to enter into conference with the others if any controversy arises between any of them out of any Pacific question involving their rights in relation to their insular Pacific possessions and dominions, and to communicate fully and frankly with the others if any of these are threatened by the aggressive action of any other power, goes far towards substituting discussion for force as the method of settling international problems in the same way as the development of the rule of law has done in national affairs. This is also true of the remaining two Treaties relating to China, of which one lays down the principles upon which China

is to be dealt with, and the other, more restricted in its field, deals with the regulation of her customs tariff. All these treaties, negotiated together, have naturally a unity of purpose and outlook. The powers concerned have, on one hand, agreed entirely to discard aggressive force as an element in the adjustment of the relations in the region of the Pacific Ocean, and have for the rest of the world renounced their freedom of action in naval matters, in relation to which nations have heretofore been peculiarly insistent on their liberty. It is necessary only to postulate intelligence, not goodwill, as a firm foundation for the expectation that the governing principle of all of these Treaties will gradually be extended to other forms of armament and other regions of the earth.

3. THE PERMANENT COURT OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE.

This subject is of such considerable importance that the Committee makes no apology for dealing with it in some detail, especially in view of the comparative difficulty in consulting the provisions by which the Court is constituted and its jurisdiction defined. Its establishment is provided for by the Covenant of the League of Nations which, by Article 14, provides that the Council of the League shall formulate and submit to its members plans for the constitution of a Court competent to hear and determine any dispute of an international character which may be submitted to it, and to give advisory opinions upon disputes on questions referred to it either by the Council or the Assembly of the League.

The Council, having constituted a committee of jurists to prepare a draft scheme for the constitution of the Court, and the scheme this committee drew up having been submitted to the members of the League and considered by the Council, it was finally made the subject of most elaborate discussion by a committee of the Assembly in the months of November and December, 1920. Of this committee the Right Honourable C. J. Doherty, lately Minister of Justice of Canada, was a member. The result of its deliberation was the adoption of what is known as the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice, a document containing sixty-four articles and providing for the constitution, jurisdiction, and, in some important respects, the practice of the Court. According to it, the Court is to be composed of eleven Judges and four Deputy Judges, elected independently by the Council and the Assembly of the League

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for nine years from a list made up of names submitted by the several members of the League. Provision is made to meet the case of a possible irresolvable failure of the Council and the Assembly to agree in their selections. The Judges are to be men "of high moral character, who possess the qualifications required in their respective countries for appointment to the highest judicial offices, or are jurisconsults of recognized competence in international law." The ordinary Judges are to receive, free of taxes, an annual salary of 15,000 Dutch florins ($6,000), with a special allowance of 45,000 florins ($18,000) to the President, who is elected by the Court for three years and is to reside at The Hague. A daily duty allowance, limited to 200 days in any year, at the rate of 150 florins ($60) a day is payable to the Vice-President and Deputy Judges, and one of 100 florins ($40) a day to the ordinary Judges for each day's absence from home on the business of the Court, and finally, for all the members of the Court except the President, an allowance of 50 florins ($20) a day for each day of actual presence at The Hague. The Court is required to hold a session every year on June 15th, and the President may summon an extraordinary session whenever necessary. Nine Judges constitute a quorum, but eleven are to sit if the attendance of so many can be obtained from among all the ordinary and deputy members of the Court. Provision, however, is made for Chambers or Divisions, two of five Judges each for labour cases and for transit and communication cases, and one of three Judges for cases to be disposed of by summary procedure. The jurisdiction of the Court extends to all matters which are referred to it by agreement, to all matters specially provided for in Treaties, and, so far as concerns those states which agree to accept the optional clause conferring compulsory jurisdiction upon the Court, to all legal disputes between them concerning the interpretation of any Treaty, any question of international law, the existence of any fact which, if established, would constitute a breach of an international obligation, and the nature and extent of the reparation to be made for such a breach. In the determination of causes before it, the Court is to apply not only the provisions of international conventions, general or particular, and the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations, but also international custom as evidence of a general practice accepted by law, judicial decisions (which, however, are to have no binding force as against states not parties to them) and, as subsidiary means for the deter