give her decisive opinion would be wholly lacking in efficacy. This should be exercised on an occasion propitious for obtaining some practical result, not only in order to guarantee her territorial and contractual rights, but to lend to the common interest of both peoples the concurrence of her opinion and counsel. To wait until the projected work shall have been located, until the "natural rights" of Costa Rica shall have suffered concrete and material injury, in order then to be able to determine whether the voice of the high party complainant must be consulted, is equivalent to ignoring that there are any acts, of nations or individuals, which, short of material realization, possess inherent powers to injure. The civil law provides a remedy against those acts that carry with them a menace to the rights of a private owner, and the same principle governs in interstate relations, which abound with cases wherein a state demands redress, in the name of its fundamental rights of existence and preservation, for an act that involves a simple menace or danger to the development of those rights. Whereas: The high party complainant is justified in impugning the BryanChamorro Treaty as violative of its rights, compromised in an alienation made without its concurrence or consent, in order to convey material and moral interests that did not belong exclusively to the grantor, but were derived from a solemn contract that marked out the line of conduct that must be followed in the future in canal projects. And it is of no avail to allege that the American Senate, in ratifying the said treaty, enacted an additional amendment that contained the provision: Provided, That whereas Costa Rica, Salvador, and Honduras have protested against the ratification of said convention in the fear or belief that said convention might in some respect impair existing rights of said states, therefore it is declared by the Senate that in advising and consenting to the ratification of the said convention as amended, such advice and consent are given with the understanding, to be expressed as a part of the instrument of ratification, that nothing in said convention is intended to affect any existing right of any of the said named states. The intention here indicated is most noble and of high importance, since it establishes an obligation upon the United States; but it is without efficacy in so far as it deals with the legal relations between the nations in litigation, for the injury to the rights of Costa Rica had been consummated and the amendment did not produce the effect of restoring things to the legal status created by the CañasJerez treaty. Besides, it appears from the Official Gazette of the Nicaraguan Government of August 24th of the present year, that the Nicaraguan Congress, in giving its approval to the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty, excluded the amendment of the American Senate, thus destroying the concert of action of the two Governments on a point of first. importance and leaving to the Senate amendment only such moral force as it may have. Whereas: Article IX of the General Treaty of Peace and Amity subscribed. at Washington stipulates as follows: The merchant ships of the signatory countries shall be considered upon the sea, along the coasts, and in the ports of said countries as national vessels, they shall enjoy the same exceptions, immunities, and concessions as the latter, and shall not pay other dues nor be subject to further taxes than those imposed upon and paid by the vessels of the country. The Bryan-Chamorro Treaty, in granting to the United States a lease of a naval base in the Gulf of Fonseca and of the islands known as Great Corn Island and Little Corn Island in the Caribbean Sea, did not reserve to the high party complainant the rights that are above set forth, and which, reciprocally, were granted by Nicaragua and Costa Rica, for a term of ten years, with an option of extension for a further term. That omission makes those rights uncertain, since those leased territories and the naval base that may be established will be exclusively subject to the laws and sovereign authority of the United States, a nation with which Costa Rica does not maintain the same legal relations, in the matter of navigation, as she does with Nicaragua. Whereas, finally: The moment has arrived in which to enter upon an examination of the prayers in the complaint, which are comprised in points second and third, and in which it is prayed that the Bryan-Chamorro pact be declared null and void, not only for the violation of Costa Rica's rights embodied in that treaty, but also on the ground that "when it was signed both contracting parties well knew of Nicaragua's lack of legal capacity to sign unrestrictedly." The Court, in considering this point in the complaint, declared, upon the unanimous consensus of opinion of its members, that it could not render a decision thereon because of the fact that the Republic of the United States of North America was not subject to the jurisdiction of the Central American Court of Justice, a tribunal called upon exclusively to pass upon the laws enforceable among the Central American states in cases brought before it for the settlement of their conflicting interests and their controversies. To judge of the validity or invalidity of the acts of a contracting party not subject to the jurisdiction of the Court; to make findings respecting its conduct and render a decision which would completely and definitely embrace it a party that had no share in the litigation, or legal occasion to be heard is not the mission of the Court, which, conscious of its high duty, desires to confine itself within the scope of its particular powers. - This doctrinary opinion is strengthened by the valuable opinion of the high party complainant as given forth by one of its counsel, the Licentiate don José Astúa Aguilar, who, in formulating his final argument at the public hearing on the 11th of the present month, presented a resumé and concrete statement of the concluding part of the complaint for the purposes of the final decision, as follows: That the unquestionable rights of Costa Rica, established by the Cañas-Jerez Treaty, the Cleveland Award, and the General Treaty of Peace and Amity of Washington, have been violated by the high party defendant in the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty, and that, according to the texts of the said conventions and arbitral award, that party was legally incapacitated from concluding that pact without the intervention and consent of my Government. The Court considered, discussed, and decided that all and each of those violations of right had occurred. As a faithful interpreter of the contractual obligations that bind the countries in dispute, and inspired by the universal doctrine that controls the harmonious existence of states, it declared that the Government of the Republic of Nicaragua committed upon the Government of Costa Rica the violations of legal rights claimed by the latter. Its decision could not be more fully stated, because such decision could have no binding force against a state foreign to the institutional system created by the Treaties of Washington. Therefore: This Court of Justice, in the name of the Republics of Central America, in the exercise of the jurisdiction that has been conferred upon it by the Convention of Washington of 1907, to which it owes its existence, and in conformity with the provisions of Articles I, XIII, XXI, XXII, XXIV and XXV of the said convention, and 6, 38, 43, 56, 76 and 81 of the Rules of Court, and also in accordance with the conclusions voted at the session of the 22d of the present month, and by a majority of four votes against the vote of Mr. Justice Gutiérrez Navas, who was not present, hereby renders the following DECISION: First. It is declared that the peremptory exception interposed by the high party defendant is denied, and that, in consequence, this Court is competent to decide the complaint brought by the Government of the Republic of Costa Rica against the Government of the Republic of Nicaragua. Second. It is declared that the Government of Nicaragua has violated, to the injury of Costa Rica, the rights granted to the latter by the Cañas-Jerez Treaty of Limits of April fifteen, eighteen hundred and fifty-eight, by the Cleveland Award of March twenty-second, eighteen hundred and eighty-eight, and by the Central American Treaty of Peace and Amity of December twentieth, nineteen hundred and seven; and Third. — That, respecting the prayer in the complaint asking that the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty be declared null and void, this Court can make no declaration whatsoever. Let this decision be notified to the high parties in interest and to the other Central American Governments. ANGEL M. BOCANEGRA, NICOLÁS OREAMUNO, SATURNINO MEDAL, MANUEL ECHEVERRÍA, Secretary. BOOK REVIEWS La Grande Guerre Européenne et la Neutralité du Chili. By Alejandro Alvarez, former Counsellor to the Ministry for Foreign affairs of Chili, etc. Paris: A Pedone. 1915. pp. 315. As is indicated by the title, the second part of the present volume, whose author has long occupied an eminent position among specialists in international relations, is devoted to an exposition of the questions of neutrality in the discussion of which his own country, Chile, had during the first year of the pending conflict been particularly concerned. In the first part, questions of neutrality also form an important element, but the survey takes a much wider range, and embraces a consideration of the fundamental causes of the war, a comparison of the European and American political systems, and a series of suggestions as to how armed conflicts are to be avoided in the future. In contrasting the European and American systems, the learned author, continuing to employ the nomenclature with which his name is somewhat distinctively associated, speaks of a "European International Law" and an "American International Law." In these phrases the term "international law" evidently is used in a special and limited sense, since, in its ordinary and general sense, "international law" is neither European nor American. What is really meant is that there is an international system in Europe different from that which exists in America, and that each system has certain rules of its own which are not appropriate and therefore are not common to the other. The extent to which it may be desirable or may be possible to reform the world after the present great European conflict is over, is a question concerning which opinions naturally vary. In some cases this variance seems to be at least partly due to different attitudes as to the effect of violations of international law. On the one hand, it is assumed that the obligatory character of international law is not destroyed by the actual disregard of its rules by belligerents, while on the other hand there seems to be a tendency to act upon the sup |