ce, and must submit to a law that has been enacted
whether he approves of it or not. That is why it is asserted that there
cannot be any talk of legislation in the domain of international law.
And, in fact, that is so if we adhere rigorously to the meaning of the
concept 'legislation', as developed in the domain of internal state
life. The nature of the case does not, however, demand so rigid an
adherence as this; legislation is really nothing more than the conscious
creation of law in contrast to the growth of law out of custom. And it
is an admitted fact that, side by side with international law developed
in this latter way, there is an international law which the members of
the community of states have expressly created by agreement. We might
therefore quite well substitute the term _agreeing a law_ for the term
_decreeing a law_,--but why introduce a new technical term? This
international 'agreeing a law' does consciously and intentionally create
law, and it is therefore a source of law. And provided that we always
bear in mind that this source of law operates only through a
quasi-legislative activity, there is no obstacle to speaking, in a
borrowed sense, of international 'legislation'. Nevertheless, agreeable
and apt as this term is, it must not lead us to assimilate the internal
legislation of a state and international legislation save in the one
respect that in both law is made in a direct, conscious and purposive
manner, in contrast to law that originates in custom.

[Sidenote: Hague Peace Conferences as an organ for international
legislation.]

31. International law of the legislative kind existed before the law of
the Hague Peace Conferences; it issued from the conventions drawn up
from time to time at congresses and conferences. It was a great step
forward that the Congress of Vienna was able, for the first time, to
create general international law by agreement, and that thereby general
international law of the legislative kind could come into existence side
by side with the customary law of nations. But the nineteenth century
introduced international legislation only occasionally. If, as sketched
above, success attends the attempt to make the Hague Peace Conferences a
permanent institution, there would be evolved for the society of states
a legislative organ corresponding to the parliaments of individual
states. A wide field opens thus for further international legislative
activity. Even if the time be n