proceedings to carry out these treaties shall be in favor of the party accused. Such treaties are rather the exceptions to the general right of political asylum, and an extension of our immigration laws prohibiting the introduction of persons convicted of crimes, 18 Stat. 477, by providing for their deporation and return to their own country, even before conviction, when their surrender is demanded in the interests of public justice. There is such a general acknowledgement of the necessity of such treaties that of late, and since the facilities for the escape of criminals have so greatly increased, most civilized powers have entered into conventions for the mutual surrender of persons charged with the most serious non-political crimes. These treaties should be faithfully observed, and interpreted with a view to fulfill our just obligations to other powers, without sacrificing the legal or constitutional rights of the accused.

On extradition in general see Struycken, "Des Droits de l'Individu en Matière d'Extradition," in 27th Report of International Law Associa tion (1912), 139; Clarke, Extradition; Piggott, Extradition (chiefly a commentary on the British Extradition Act of 1870); Bentwich, Leading Cases and Statutes on International Law, 90 (convenient summary of the British Extradition Act); Moore, Extradition and Interstate Rendition; Bevilaqua, Direito Publico Internacional, II, 123; Cobbett, Cases and Opinions, I, 244; Hyde, I, 566; Bonfils (Fauchille), sec. 455; Moore, Digest, IV, ch. xiv.

CHAPTER X.

THE NON-BELLIGERENT SETTLEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL CONTROVERSIES.

SECTION 1. ARBITRATION.

THE LA NINFA.

UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS, NINTH CIRCUIT. 1896. 75 Fed. Rep. 513.

Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the District of Alaska.

HAWLEY, District Judge. This is an appeal in admiralty from a decree forfeiting the schooner La Ninfa, upon the ground that she had been unlawfully engaged in killing seal in the waters of Alaska territory. See 49 Fed. 575. The libel charges that the vessel and her crew "were engaged in killing fur seals within the limits of Alaska territory, and in the waters thereof, in violation of section 1956 of the Revised Statutes of the United States." There is no evidence that a single seal had been killed within one marine league of Alaska, whether of the mainland or any of its islands. The evidence does show that the killing of the seals was about 10 miles from shore.

The question arises whether Behring Sea, at a distance of more than one league from the American shore, is Alaskan territory, or in the waters thereof, or within the dominion of the United States in the waters of Behring Sea. Section 1956 of the Revised Statutes reads as follows:

"Sec. 1956. No person shall kill any otter, mink, marten or fur-seal, or other fur-bearing animal, within the limits of Alaska territory, or in the waters thereof; and all vessels,

their tackle, apparel, furniture and cargo, found engaged in violation of this section shall be forfeited," etc.

Section 3 of the act to provide for the protection of the salmon

fisheries of Alaska, approved March 2, 1889, provides that section 1956 "is hereby declared to include and apply to all the dominion of the United States in the waters of Behring Sea; and it shall be the duty of the President, at a timely season in each year, to issue his proclamation and cause the same to be published warning all persons against entering said waters for the purpose of violating the provisions of said section," etc. By these provisions, the question as to what the boundaries were over which the United States had dominion was not intended to be, and was not, determined by the amendatory act. The question was left open for future consideration.

The government relies solely upon the provisions of the statute to sustain the decree of the district court, and contends that the decision of the Supreme Court in Re Cooper, 143 U. S. 474, 12 Sup. Ct. 453, justifies the affirmance of the decree. That decision does not reach the direct point here in controversy. The court there held that the question was a political one, in which the United States had asserted a doctrine in opposition to the views contended for by the petitioner; that the negotiations were then pending in relation to the particular subject; but the court declined to decide whether the government was right or wrong in its contention, or to review the action of the political departments upon the question under review. The opinion shows that the court considered it a grave question. It recites much of the important history relative to the disputed question, but the question itself was not decided. The case was disposed of upon other grounds. What was said concerning the disputed questions had reference to the conditions then existing. The conditions now existing are entirely different. The negotiations then pending [between the United States and Great Britain] were brought about by the asserted claim of the United States to proprietary rights in the waters of Behring Sea, and in the fur-bearing animals which frequent it and its islands, which was disputed by other nations, particularly by England, the property of whose subjects had been from time to time seized by the United States for alleged violations of the statutes in question; and these controversies resulted in submitting the disputed question to an arbitration. 27 Stat. 948. Article 1 provides that:

"The questions which have arisen between the government of the United States and the government of her Britannic majesty, concerning the jurisdictional rights of the United States in the

waters of Behring Sea, and concerning also the preservation of the fur-seal in, or habitually resorting to the said sea, and the rights of the citizens and subjects of either country, as regards the taking of fur-seal in, or habitually resorting to the said waters, shall be submitted to a tribunal of arbitration."

By the fourteenth article of the treaty or convention submitting the questions to arbitration it was provided that:

"The high contracting parties engage to consider the result of the proceedings of the tribunal of arbitration as a full, perfect and final settlement of all the questions referred to by the arbitrators."

In submitting the questions to the high court of arbitration, the government agreed to be bound by the decision of the arbitrators, and has since passed an act to give effect to the award rendered by the tribunal of arbitration. 28 Stat. 52. The award should, therefore, be considered as having finally settled the rights of the United States in the waters of Alaska and of Behring Sea, and all questions concerning the rights of its own citizens and subjects therein, as well as of the citizens and subjects of other countries.

The true interpretation of section 1956, and of the amendment thereto, depends upon the dominion of the United States in the waters of Behring Sea,-such dominion therein as was "ceded by Russia to the United States by treaty of 1867." This question has been settled by the award of the arbitrators, and this settlement must be accepted "as final." It follows therefrom that the words "in the waters thereof," as used in section 1956, and the words "dominion of the United States in the waters of Behring Sea," in the amendment thereto, must be construed to mean the waters within three miles from the shores of Alaska. On coming to this conclusion, this court does not decide the question adversely to the political department of the government. It is undoubtedly true, as has been decided by the Supreme Court, that in pending controversies doubtful questions, which are undecided, must be met by the political department of the government. "They are beyond the sphere of judicial cognizance," and, "if a wrong has been done, the power of redress is with Congress, not with the judiciary." The Cherokee Tobacco 11 Wall. 616-621. But in the present case there is no pending question left undetermined for the political department to decide. It has been settled. The award is to be construed as a treaty which has become final. A treaty, when

accepted and agreed to, becomes the supreme law of the land. It binds courts as much as an act of Congress. In Head Money Cases, 112 U. S. 580-598, 5 Sup. Ct. 254, the court said:

"A treaty is primarily a contract between independent nations. It depends for the enforcement of its provisions on the interest and honor of the governments which are parties to it.

A treaty, then, is the law of the land, as an act of Congress is, whenever its provisions prescribe a rule by which the rights of the private citizen or subject may be determined. And when such rights are of a nature to be enforced in a court of justice, that court resorts to the treaty for a rule of decision for the case before it, as it would to a statute." Chew Heong v. U. S., 112 U. S. 536, 540, 565, 5 Sup. Ct. 255; U. S. v. Rauscher, 119 U. S. 407-419, 7 Sup. Ct. 234.

The duty of courts is to construe and give effect to the latest expression of the sovereign will; hence it follows that, whatever may have been the contention of the government at the time In re Cooper was decided, it has receded therefrom since the award was rendered by an agreement to accept the same "as a full, complete, and final settlement of all questions referred to by the arbitrators," and from the further fact that the government since the rendition of the award has passed "an act to give effect to the award rendered by the tribunal of arbitration."

The decree of the district court is reversed, and the cause remanded, with instructions to the district court to dismiss the libel.

NOTE. One of the most important tangible results of The Hague Conferences was the creation of a Permanent Court of Arbitration, which was instituted at the Conference of 1899 and strengthened at the Conference of 1907. The Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, adopted in 1907, was based upon the underlying principle stated in Article 37:

International arbitration has for its object the settlement

of disputes between States by judges of their own choice and
on the basis of respect for law.

Recourse to arbitration implies an engagement to submit
in good faith to the award.

The first case submitted to the Permanent Court was the Pious Fund Controversy between the United States and Mexico, which was decided in 1902. The decisions thus far rendered by the Permanent Court are not particularly important from a juristic standpoint. Their chief value lies in the fact that they demonstrate the feasibility of