CHAPTER II. WHETHER, OR HOW FAR, PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW RESTS ON THE COMITAS GENTIUM, OR CONVENANCE RECIPROQUE, OVER THE JURIDICAL OR LEGAL RELATIONS OF INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGN STATES. CHAPTER II. WHETHER, OR HOW FAR, PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW RESTS ON THE COMITAS GENTIUM, OR CONVENANCE RECIPROQUE, OVER THE JURIDICAL OR LEGAL RELATIONS OF INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGN STATES. THE questions and doctrines of the writers on the conAlictus legum, so far as they arise or exist between the citizens or subjects of the same independent state, do not fall under, or form any part of, international law, properly so called. They are regulated entirely by the legislative and judicial powers of each sovereign state. And no sovereign, obviously, has any right to interfere with, control, or modify the legislation or judicial determinations of any other sovereign state. But when the questions and doctrines arising from, or consequent upon, the confictus legum arise between, or affect the interests of, the citizens or subjects of different independent states, they clearly fall under international law; and there can be no doubt that, in a variety of cases occurring between the individuals of different nations, from their intercourse for the purposes of commerce or otherwise, the judicial tribunals of one nation, in time of peace, actually have given, and do give effect to, and enforce, the laws of other nations, although different from their own, ex comitate gentium, as it has been termed. The question, however, here arises, whether this temporary or qualified relinquish ment of sovereign legislative or judicial power is merely voluntary, a matter of choice, or, at most, the discharge of a moral duty; or whether it is the observance of a legal duty, or judicial obligation, which may be enforcedin other words, of a rule of compulsory justice. For taking the former view of the matter, there are evidently strong grounds. Such seems to have been the leaning of the opinions of modern international jurists generally, from the description they give of the doctrines of the conflictus legum, and of private international law, existing, not jure gentium, but ex comitate gentium. Indeed, it is difficult to take any other view, consistently with the admission of the absolute, unlimited, and exclusive sovereignty of independent states. Accordingly, this doctrine was thus distinctly expounded early in the eighteenth century, by Ulric Huber, in his Prælectiones ad Pand. vol. ii.-De Leg. "Rectores imperiorum, id comiter agunt, ut jura cujusque populi intra terminos ejus exercita, teneunt ubique suam vim, quatenus nihil potestati aut juri alterius imperantis ejusque civium præjudicetur." And, in his Jus Publicum Universale, lib. iii. cap. 8, § 7, he adds "Summas potestates, cujusque reipublicæ indulgere sibi mutuo, ut jura legesque aliorum in aliarum territoriis, effectum habeant, quatenus sine præjudicio indulgentium fieri potest. Ob reciprocam, enim, utilitatem, in disciplinam juris gentium abiit, ut civitas alterius civitatis leges apud se valere patiatur." The same doctrine has continued to be maintained, as we shall afterwards see, at greater length by the more recent international jurists of the present century—such as the late eminent professor and judge, Mr Justice Story, Dr Fœlix, formerly mentioned, and M. Mailher de a |