The First Conference for the Codification of International Law met at The Hague on March 13, 1930, and closed its sessions after a month of hard work on April 13, 1930. The results achieved are somewhat meager, so far as they are embodied in signed instruments, but on the whole they need not be discouraging to those who see a need for the clarification an systematization of the customary international law through a process of codification. It is perhaps too early to attempt a thorough appraisal of the progress made by the Conference, but it is possible to review what it accomplished, to set out some of the Hmitations within which it functioned, and to sketch the prospect which has been opened for a continuation of its work at future conferences.

There is one point which has been stressed by nearly every one who has discussed the inclusion of nationality in the codification of international law, including the rapporteurs of the League of Nations Committee of Experts and of the Nationality Committee at the First Codification Conference, that is, that this subject is especially difficult because of the fact that it is to a great extent “ political.” Most, if not all, branches of international law are in a sense pohtical, but, when it is said that nationality is peculiarly a political subject, it is meant, no doubt, that the law of nationality is primarily a domestic matter as regards each state, to be determined by each state for itself, according to its needs, social, political, military, economic, etc. Thus no state is willing to surrender its sovereign prerogative in the matter of determining the way in which its nationality may be acquired. But this does not mean that international law has nothing to do with nationality.

Judged by its inability to agree upon a convention on territorial waters, as the substance of things hoped for, the Conference for the Codification of International Law was a failure. Good may come of the Conference. It may have been a necessary preliminary stage in a very long and difficult process. Nevertheless, the fact remains that its purpose was to agree upon a convention upon territorial waters and it failed of its purpose. Usually the cause of the ill-success of a conference is lack of preparation. This failure cannot be ascribed to lack of preparation. It is unnecessary to rehearse the antecedent steps. Several years had been devoted to preparation. Governments had agreed that the subject of territorial waters was suitable and ripe for codification. In addition to the work done by the Committee of Experts and by the Preparatory Committee, the governments had answered voluminous questionnaires and had made observations upon detailed schedules of points from which had been prepared the bases of discussion. All of this work had been completed and in print months before the Conference met. Apparently nothing was left undone by the agencies of the League of Nations in order that the various governments might have ample opportunity for examination and study of the questions involved. And, it may be added, the observations of the governments were for the most part responsive and illuminating.

From time to time since the middle of the nineteenth century various efforts have been made to codify international law. Most of these have dealt with administrative and international private law (the conflict of laws) and more particularly with the laws of war and neutrality. Some of these efforts, particularly those of jurists of the Western Hemisphere, have, included in their scope the whole field of public and private international law. It was, however, left for the League of Nations to launch upon a world-wide effort to place in code form those rules which are regarded as the body of law on three important subjects of public international law. These efforts culminated in the Codification Conference held at The Hague from March 13 to April 12, inclusive, 1930. The three subjects before that Conference were Nationality, Territorial Waters, and Responsibility of States for Damage Caused in Their Territory to the Person or Property of Foreigners.

Among the three subjects which the Committee of Experts for the Progressive Codification of International Law considered ripe for codification was the subject of “Responsibility of States for Damage Caused in Their Territory to the Person or Property of Foreigners.” Acting on that assumption, the Committee sent out to the Governments at least three separate documents between 1925 and 1929: first, a Report of its Sub-committee, consisting of Messrs. Guerrero of Salvador, and Wang Chung Hui of China second, a Schedule of Points drawn up by the so-called Preparatory Committee of Experts, a smaller body, and designed to elicit replies from the different governments, presenting their views on different aspects of the general subject; and finally, the Bases of Discussion, consisting of the replies to the Schedule of Points made by some thirty governments, the substance of these replies being then crystallized into propositions called Bases of Discussion, on which The Hague Conference of the governments, called for March 13, 1930, was to conduct its deliberations. Perhaps that Conference was handicapped from the start by the fact that the Guerrero report, which had been circulated, departed materially, in some of its fundamental postulates and premises (representing minority views) from the subsequent Bases of Discussion, which reflected the views of the majority of the replying governments. Of the Latin-American nations, Chile was practically the only country to respond to the Schedule of Points on the Responsibility of States, and then only within the narrowest limits.

Since the legal rights of the coastal state and of foreign states within the territorial sea differ greatly from the rights of all states on the high sea, it should be made possible for a navigator, or a fisherman, or the coastal state, to determine with certainty whether or not a vessel is in territorial waters or on the high sea. It will be practically impossible to negotiate a general convention embodying fundamental international law relating to territorial waters until the geographical problem of delimiting the zone of territorial waters is solved. The complexity and importance of the geographical problem are evident in the fact that, of the 28 “ bases of discussion” which were formulated by the preparatory committee, for the consideration of the Commission on Territorial Waters at the Conference for the Codification of International Law recently held at The Hague, one-half related to the delimitation of territorial waters, while the other half related to legal rights and obligations.