INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNALS 831 III A really serious objection to all international tribunals is the scarcity of principles on which to decide the disputes that may arise. Most plans for a league recognize this, and provide that certain classes of disputes, on subjects with regard to which recog- nized rules exist, are to be dealt with by a body acting as a court of law, while others are to go before a board of conciliation, which renders its conclusions in the form of recommendations. It is interesting to observe that the judges in early times acted both as conciliators and as a court; and that the scantiness and indefiniteness of the laws which they administered seem to have interfered but little with the satisfactory operation of the tribunals. The difficulty was felt to be not so much in ascertaining a man's rights as in obtaining them. The procedure was every- where more important than the substantive law; and with the pro- cedure and the constitution of the courts most of the written law was concerned.^^ With respect to substantive rights there was a body of custom- ary law, pretty generally understood, but indefinite and not re- duced to writing. Whenever it was necessary to lay down a legal principle the judges and the parties would accept the opinion of anyone whom they respected as a learned man.^^ This corresponds very nearly with the situation to-day in a vast domain of inter- national law. More or less vague principles are generally recog- nized, which are not precisely stated anywhere except in text- writers of self-constituted authority. Yet in a large class of cases a decently impartial tribunal would find Httle difficulty in reaching a conclusion. The result often depends principally on the investi- gation of facts. The history both of early courts of law and of modern interna- tional arbitrations shows that the legal rules to be appHed, as well as the means of enforcing judgments, may be left somewhat in- definite without preventing the judicial machinery from working eflfectively. In international arbitrations, when once a question has been submitted, a conclusion has always been reached, and that conclusion, though frequently unsatisfactory to one side, and 21 Maine, Institutions, 252.
- I Stephen, History of Criminal Law, 52.
