ess. It must not be said that these are obvious
matters and therefore do not need special emphasis. There are many
recognized rules of customary law the operativeness of which is
challenged by this or that writer because they offend his sense of what
is right and proper. As an example thereof let us take the refusal by
some well-reputed writers to include annexation after effective conquest
(_debellatio_) among the modes, known to international law, of
acquisition of state territory. They teach that _debellatio_ has no
consequences in point of law, but only in point of fact; that it rests
on naked might and brings the annexed area under the power of the victor
only in point of fact and not in point of law. Here they are putting
their politico-jural convictions in the place of a generally recognized
rule of law.

[Sidenote: The science of international law must be impartial.]

69. Science cannot, however, be genuinely positive unless it is
impartial and free from political animosities and national bias. To
believe that it really is at present impartial is a great deception.
Whoever compares the writings of the publicists of the several states
runs up against the contrary at every step. There is no state which in
the past has not allowed itself to be guilty of offences against
international law, but its writers on international law seldom admit
that this has been the case. They perceive the mote in the eye of other
nations, but not the beam in the eye of their own nation. Their writings
teem with ungrounded complaints against other nations, but scarcely
throw the slightest blame on their own country. By such a method
problems are not brought nearer to solution, but only shoved on to one
side. What is wanted, is that an ear should be lent to the principle
_audiatur et altera pars_, that the opponent should be heard and his
motives weighed. It will then often turn out that what was believed to
merit reprobation, as a breach of law, will show itself to be a
one-sided but forceful solution of a disputed question. And even where a
real breach of law has been committed it will be worth while to weigh
the political motives and interests which have driven the perpetrator to
it. It must ever be kept in mind that at the present day no state
lightheartedly commits a breach of the law of nations, and that, when it
does commit such a breach, it is generally because it deems its highest
political interests to be in jeopardy. Such a