es committed on the high seas, but no
provision was made for dealing with offenses against the law of
nations.[1193] The draft of the Constitution submitted to the Convention
of 1787 by its Committee of Detail empowered Congress "to declare the
law and punishment of piracies and felonies committed on the high seas,
and the punishment of counterfeiting the coin of the United States, and
of offences against the law of nations."[1194] In the debate on the
floor of the Convention the discussion turned on the question as to
whether the terms, "felonies" and the "law of nations," were
sufficiently precise to be generally understood. The view that these
terms were often so vague and indefinite as to require definition
eventually prevailed and Congress was authorized to define as well as
punish piracies, felonies and offenses against the law of nations.[1195]

DEFINITION OF OFFENSES

The fact that the Constitutional Convention considered it necessary to
give Congress authority to define offenses against the law of nations
does not mean that in every case Congress must undertake to codify that
law or mark its precise boundaries before prescribing punishments for
infractions thereof. An act punishing "the crime of piracy, as defined
by the law of nations" was held to be an appropriate exercise of the
constitutional authority to "define and punish" the offense, since it
adopted by reference the sufficiently precise definition of
International Law.[1196] Similarly, in Ex parte Quirin,[1197] the Court
found that by the reference in the Fifteenth Article of War to
"offenders or offenses that * * * by the law of war may be triable by
such military commissions * * *," Congress had "exercised its authority
to define and punish offenses against the law of nations by sanctioning,
within constitutional limitations, the jurisdiction of military
commissions to try persons for offenses which, according to the rules
and precepts of the law of nations, and more particularly the law of
war, are cognizable by such tribunals."[1198] Where, conversely,
Congress defines with particularity a crime which is "an offense against
the law of nations," the law is valid, even if it contains no recital
disclosing that it was enacted pursuant to this clause. Thus the duty
which the law of nations casts upon every government to prevent a wrong
being done within its own dominion to another nation with which it is at
peace, or to the people thereof, was found