3 CONFERENCES AT PRAGUE AND BERGEN AND THE LOOMING WAR 263law, a fortiori there must be a science of international life showing what
life is and revealing its various manifestations’.^78
Escudero opined that a science of international life in the form laid
down by Alvarez, could serve as a basis on which to reconstruct inter-
national law which, according to Escudero and before him Alvarez, had
declined in prestige and authority in recent times. He contended that
this fate had befallen international law because it had been ‘approached
from the standpoint of abstract legal science’ and had thus ‘failed give
weight to the realities of the life of nations.’^79 Escudero highlighted
a point made by Alvarez in 1908, namely, that the scope of studies of
international life and international law needed to be broadened because
at that point in time they were largely confined to Europe. He stated
that Alvarez’s studies had shown that because of the special conditions
of life in the New World, a body of international law had evolved in the
Americas that was different from the body of international law that had
evolved in Europe: what Alvarez called American international law was
characterised by principles, doctrines and problems which were peculiar
to it. Escudero went on to insist on the importance of studying the spe-
cial conditions of life on in continent. Such a focus on regional and con-
tinental variation, Escudero stated, was not antithetical to the notion of
‘a world-wide international law’.^80 Rather, to call attention to the varia-
tions between different regopma; ad continental legal orders, according
to Escudero, is to reveal the real character of world-wide international
law: ‘side by side with principles of universal validity’ there are legal
orders ‘of a continental—European or American—or even regional char-
acter.’ Escudero then pointed out that Alvarez had urged that ‘conti-
nentalism and regionalism should be taken into account, not only in
international law, but also in international organisation, and that the
League of Nations should be established on that basis, rather than on the
excessive universalism imposed upon it by its founders’.^81
(^78) Julio Escudero ‘The Necessity of the Study of International Relations,’ in Zimmern,
ed., The University Teaching of International Relations, 28-9, 31.
(^79) Ibid., 29.
(^80) Ibid., 28–9.
(^81) Ibid., 29–30.