2. The Secretaries shall keep the records and conduct the correspondence of the Society and of the Executive Council and shall perform such other duties as the Council may assign to them. 3. The Treasurer shall receive and have the custody of the funds of the Society and shall disburse the same subject to the rules and under the direction of the Executive Council. The fiscal year shall begin on the first day of January. 4. The Executive Council shall have charge of the general interests of the Society, shall call regular and special meetings of the Society and arrange the programs therefor, shall appropriate money, shall appoint from among its members an Executive Committee and other committees and their chairmen, with appropriate powers, and shall have full power to issue or arrange for the issue of a periodical or other publications, and in general possess the governing power in the Society, except as otherwise specifically provided in this Constitution. The Executive Council shall have the power to fill vacancies in its membership occasioned by death, resignation, failure to elect, or other cause, such appointees to hold office until the next annual election. Nine members shall constitute a quorum of the Executive Council, and a majority vote of those in attendance shall control its decisions. 5. The Executive Committee shall have full power to act for the Executive Council when the Executive Council is not in session. 6. The Executive Council shall elect a Chairman, who shall preside at its meetings in the absence of the President, and who shall also be Chairman of the Executive Committee. ARTICLE VI The Society shall meet annually at a time and place to be determined by the Executive Council for the election of officers and the transaction of such other business as the Council may determine. Special meetings may be held at any time and place on the call of the Executive Council or at the written request of thirty members on the call of the Secretary. At least ten days notice of such special meeting shall be given to each member of the Society by mail, specifying the object of the meeting, and no other business shall be considered at such meeting. Twenty-five members shall constitute a quorum at all regular and special meetings of the Society and a majority vote of those present and voting shall control its decisions. ARTICLE VII Resolutions All resolutions which shall be offered at any meeting of the Society shall, in the discretion of the presiding officer, or on the demand of three members, be referred to the appropriate committee or the Council, and no vote shall be taken until a report shall have been made thereon. ARTICLE VIII Amendments This Constitution may be amended at any annual or special meeting of the Society by a majority vote of the members present and voting. But all amendments to be proposed at any meeting shall first be referred to the Executive Council for consideration and shall be submitted to the members of the Society at least ten days before such meeting. AMENDMENT Article IV is hereby amended by inserting after the words "The officers of the Society shall consist of a President," the words "an Honorary President." 3 This amendment was adopted at the business meeting held April 24, 1909. ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF INTERNATIONAL LAW NEW WILLARD HOTEL, WASHINGTON, D. C. FIRST SESSION Thursday, April 26, 1917, 8 o'clock p.m. THE PRESIDENT (the Honorable Elihu Root). The Society will come to order, something which appears to be much needed in the Society of Nations. Before beginning the proceedings of the evening, the Secretary will read a telegram just received. THE SECRETARY (Mr. James Brown Scott). American Society of International Law, New Willard Hotel, Washington. HABANA. Cuban Society sends its heartiest greetings and best wishes for eleventh meeting. BUSTAMANTE, President. The PRESIDENT. It has been customary, in opening the annual meetings of the American Society of International Law, for the President to give a brief resumé of the principal events in the field of international law during the preceding year. Last year I felt constrained to omit that resumé, and this year I have nothing to call to the attention of the Society in the field of international law, except, so far as I can recall, that every rule which has been devised by the civilization of the century just passed for confining the operations of war within the limits of humanity, so far as that may be possible, and for distinguishing war between civilized nations from the wars of the past between barbarians every rule of that descrip tion has been systematically, flagrantly and outrageously violated during the past year by the Empire of Germany. The subject upon which I will ask your attention for a few minutes in opening this session is THE EFFECT OF DEMOCRACY ON INTERNATIONAL LAW ADDRESS BY ELIHU ROOT President of the Society In trying to estimate the future possibilities of international law, and to form any useful opinion as to the methods by which the law can be made more binding upon international conduct, serious difficulties are presented in the unknown quantities introduced by the great war, which is steadily drawing into its circle the entire civilized world. Hitherto, we have been unable to form any real judgment as to which of the two warring groups of nations will succeed in the end. Our expectations and beliefs upon that question have been the products of our sympathies and our hopes and of an optimism for which it is now happily more easy to find just grounds than ever before. Nor have we been able to measure the effects of the war upon national character, and the probable results in national modes of thought and conduct. A just estimate of such forces is not easy. The modern era of nationalities has been marked by three great convulsions which turned the minds of all civilized men towards peace, and led them to seek means to make peace secure. The Thirty Years' War produced the Peace of Westphalia and the system of independent nationalities in Europe, and it produced Grotius and the science of international law; and practically every Power in Europe except the Ottoman was a party to the agreement to maintain the system thus established. Yet, the century which followed exhibited the most cynical and universal disregard for the law, and for the treaty, and for all treaties. The Napoleonic Wars produced the Treaty of Vienna and the Holy Alliance. That sincere but misguided effort sought to fix the limits and regulate the conduct of the nations of Europe in accordance with the principles which the treaty-making Powers then believed to be in keeping with right and justice, and to be effective for the permanent peaceful organization of the community of nations, and it sought to maintain the status quo by the establishment of a League to Enforce Peace in accordance with their conception. Yet, the arrangements were conceived by minds imbued with the spirit of the past, and became of no effect when tested by the changes wrought by the spirit of the future. The old bottles were filled with new wine and could not contain it; so, the scheme came to naught. Both of these efforts to secure permanent peace under the rule of law failed, because the unappreciated forces working for change and growth became stronger than the gradually decreasing restraint of agreements to maintain a fixed and immutable relation of territory and opportunities among the nations. It is reasonable to infer that a similar result must follow any attempt to base a system of international law upon definite and rigid limitations devised to meet the expediency of the moment. The law of life is growth, and no generation can prevent the growth of future generations by fixing in accordance with its ideas the specific conditions under which they are to live. As we look back, we see a multitude of ancient wrongs protected by the law of nations, naturally enough, because the law has been made by Powers in possession. We have a vague impression that international wrongs are cured by time. That is not always so. There is no international statute of limitations. Time alone cures no wrong. The people to whom wrong is done may be destroyed, as the Turks are destroying the Armenians; or the wronged people may be reconciled to the new conditions like the Saxons in England; but, for example, the unforgiven wrong of the Turk in Europe, and the unforgiven wrong of the partition of Poland, are always forces working against the law that protects them. The maintenance of the redress of such wrongs is merely a question of relative power. The rise in power of Christian Europe, and the decadence of the Ottoman Empire, make inevitable the complete refluence of the tide which once reached the walls of Vienna, and even to the valley of the Loire. No human laws or conventions could bind the forces which work through centuries to achieve such results. The futility of efforts to control such movements of mankind by the short-sighted policies of the passing day cannot be better illustrated than by the misplaced energy and sacrifice of the Crimean War and the fatuous ingenuity of the Congress of Berlin which sought to bolster up and preserve the sovereignty of the Turk. As we consider how it may be possible to reëstablish the law of nations upon a durable basis, we must realize that past experience indicates that no system of law which depends upon the physical partition of the earth dictated by the expediency of the time, no law which must be broken in order that living wrongs shall be redressed, or in order that the new ideas of the future may find room for growth, can be permanent. |