he
contending forces. If, on the other hand, the Anglo-American
interpretation be the right one, pains should have been taken to secure
a wholly different draft of the provision in question, for the present
wording is by no means transparently clear. The protocols of the
Conference (_Actes_, i, 101; iii, 14, 103) are not sufficiently explicit
on the matter. The German delegate, Goeppert, did indeed explain (cf.
_Actes_, iii, 103) at the session of the first subcommission of the
Second Commission on July 3, 1907, 'that this proposal is in the
direction of not limiting to corporeal goods the inviolability of enemy
property, and that it has in view the whole domain of obligations with
the object of forbidding all legislative measures which, in time of war,
would deprive an enemy subject of the right to take proceedings for the
performance of a contract in the courts of the adverse party'. But we
shall scarcely go wrong if we assume that the members of the Second
Commission, who were entrusted with the consideration of the
'Regulations respecting the laws of land warfare', had not sufficiently
realized the full meaning of the German proposal. It would otherwise be
quite unintelligible that the reporter upon the German proposal could
say (cf. _Actes_, i, 101): 'This addition is deemed a very happy attempt
to bring out in clear language one of the principles admitted in 1899',
for these 'principles' (concerning the immunity of the private property
of enemy subjects in land warfare) have very little indeed to do with
the question of the _persona standi in judicio_ of an enemy subject.

[Sidenote: Difficulties due to the fact that international law cannot be
made by a majority vote, or repealed save by a unanimous vote.]

39. A difficulty of a special kind besets international legislation,
owing to the fact that international rules cannot be created by a
majority vote, and that, when once in existence, they cannot be repealed
save by a unanimous resolution.

[Sidenote: A way out found in the difference between universal and general
international law.]

But when once we free ourselves from the preconception that the equality
of states makes it improper for legislative conferences to adopt any
resolutions which are not unanimously supported, there is nothing to
prevent a substantial result being arrived at even without unanimity. At
this point the difference between general and universal international
law furnishes a way ou