nd 8-9 contain nothing new, but merely express what
observation would show to be the legal position at present.

[Sidenote: The proposed constitution leaves state-sovereignty intact.]

27. It must be particularly remarked that such a constitution can in no
way infringe on the full sovereignty of individual states. Apart from
the fact that the idea of sovereignty indicates an absolute independence
of any higher earthly power, that idea has never acquired a rigid and
uniformly recognized content. Times and circumstances have influenced
and shaped it in different states and in the mouths of different
authorities. This development of the idea, an idea which has won a place
for itself and the retention of which seems desirable despite all
opposition, may go further still in the future.

[Sidenote: The equality of states.]

28. The proposed constitution, further, makes no inroad at all on the
equality of states. This equality is the indispensable foundation of
international society. The idea of equality merely expresses the fact
that in all resolutions of the international society every state,
whatever may be its size and political importance, obtains one voice and
no more than one, that every state can be bound by a resolution only
with its consent, and that no state can exercise jurisdiction over
another state. It does not and cannot express more. In no circumstances
is it to be asserted that unanimity is a condition for all resolutions
of the Conferences, and that all resolutions are void to which one or
more states refuse their consent. Of course, such resolutions bind those
only who assent to them, and of course unanimous resolutions alone can
be considered to be universally binding. But nothing should hinder the
Conferences--and so it happened in the two first Conferences--from
passing majority resolutions. It must never be lost sight of that such
majority resolutions do not go to form a _universal_ but only a
_general_ law of nations. Only he who repudiates the necessary
distinction between a particular and a general and a universal law of
nations can demand unanimity. Now the development which up to the
present has taken place in the law of nations has shown the necessity of
this distinction. It would be extremely difficult to enumerate any large
number of universally accepted rules of the law of nations--apart from
those which have obtained recognition as customary law. We have only to
think of the Declaration