L. Oppenheim

“ The fact that the right of Panama to demand exemption from payment of tolls for her vessels is one of the conditions under which the Republic of Panama ceded to the United States the strip of territory necessary for the construction, administration, and protection of the Canal, cannot invalidate the previously acquired right of Great Britain to demand equal treatment of the vessels of all nations without any exception whatever. ”

“ Should she refuse to go to arbitration in her present dispute with Great Britain, the whole movement for arbitration would, for a generation at least, be discredited and come to a standstill. For if the leader of the movement is false to all his declarations and aspirations in the past, the movement itself must be damaged and its opponents must be victorious. ”

“ It is true that, according to Article VI of the American Constitution, all international treaties of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land, but in case an Act of Congress contains rules not in agreement with stipulations of a previous international treaty, the American Courts consider themselves bound by the Act of Congress, and not by the stipulations of the previous treaty. ”

“ Though so short a time has elapsed since the Panama Canal Bill became a law, mutterings have been heard of the possibility that the United States would refuse this request of Great Britain to refer the point in dispute to The Hague Court. But such a policy would be most unwise for the United States to pursue. No better means to injure our foreign trade and relations could be devised. ”

“ In acceding to such a solution of the point of difference between the two Powers, the honor of the United States and Great Britain surely will be as safe in the hands of their respective counsel as the honor of a private individual is in those of his lawyer in a suit before a Municipal Tribunal. ”

“ At the proper time, let the question be argued before The Hague Court, and whatever the decision may be, which both parties will be pledged in advance to accept, another triumph will have been won for the Law of the Nations. Another step forward—and International Law and Justice can only advance a step at a time—towards the distant goal of universal peace through the expansion of the Law of Nations will be accomplished to the substantial gain and credit of civilization and humanity. ”

“ There are, secondly, other publicists who maintain that International Law and Municipal Law are two essentially different bodies of law which have nothing in common but that they are both branches—but separate branches!—of the tree of Law. ”