Jus fodiendi

In Civil Law. The name of a rural servitude which permits digging on the land of another, Inst 2, 3, 2; Dig. 8, 3, 1, 1. A similar right was recognized in early English law; Bract 222. J US G ENTI U M (Lat). The law of natioms. It has been said that although the Romans used these words in the sense we attach to law of nations, yet among them the sense was much more extended. Falck, Encyc. Jur. 102, n. 42. It has been termed a system made up by the early Roman lawyers of the common Ingredients in the customs of the old Italian tribes, for the purpose of adjudicating questions arising in Rome between foreigners or natives and foreigners. Maine, Anc. Law 49. The jus gentium is differently characterized by the later writers on the civil law from the meaning given to the phrase by the earlier writers who treated it, as more identical with the Idea of modern international law than It is now considered to have been. The distinction between the jua gentium and the fua civile is thus admirably expressed: “The jua gentium, on the other hand, came to be regarded as a universal la,w of all mankind, common to all nations, because resting on the nature of things and the general sense of equity which obtains among ail men, the 'Jua gentium quod apud omnea gentea perasque cuatoditur/ a sort of natural law, exacting recognition everywhere in virtue of its Inherent reasonableness. It would, however, be erroneous to suppose that tbe Romans attempted to introduce a code of nature such as the philosophers had devised. The jus gentium was,*, and never had been anything else but a portion of positive Roman law, which commercial usage of other sources of law, more especially the praetorian edict (q. v.), bad clothed in a concrete form. Nor again must it be imagined that the Romans simply transferred a portion of foreign (Hellenic) law bodily into their own system. In the few quite exceptional cases where they did so (as e. g. in the case of hypothecs), they did not fall to impress their Institutions with a national Roman character. The antithesis between Jua civile and Jua gentium was merely the outward expression transform itself from tbe special local law of a city into a general law for tbe civilized world. Tbe Jus gentium was that part of tbe private law of Rome which was essentially in accordance with the private law of other nations, more especially with that of the Greeks, which would naturally predominate along the seaboard of the Mediterranean. In other words, Jua gentium was that portion of the positive law of Rome which appeared to tbe Romans themselves in the light of a 'ratio acripta/ of a law which obtains among all nartions and is common to all mankind.” Sohm, Inst. Rom. L. 9 13. The Romans discovered, or thought they discovered, a common groundwork of legal Institutions in the various commonwealths that became subject to Rome. What remained, after deducting local and technical peculiarities, was called by them the common law of nations, Jua gentium. Pollock, Oxford Lectures 10. The origin of the jua gentium was undoubtedly to be found in the adjustment of the Roman law to the relations existing between Roman citizens and foreigners, and between foreigners themselves. The growth of a different system was a not unnatural result of the administration of law in cases where both parties were not Roman citizens, by the foreign praitors, who were not bound by the strict rules of the jua civile, but from going about from place to place, and administering a kind of equitable jurisdiction in the settlement of disputes, they might not inaptly be termed peripatetic or itinerant arbitrators. The growth of a system of law administered by Ihem alongside of the jua (Avile was not unlike the growth of the equity jurisprudence alongside of the common law. Then, too, the fact that these oflicers were constantly engaged in settling disputes, to which at least one party was a foreigner, naturally led to their becoming familiar with the principles of other systems of law, and in applying them to the case in hand, so far as they commended themselves to their sense of justice. The new system was afterwards extended to the whole non-citizen class. And while in the first instance it was treated as an entirely distinct system from the jua civile, it gradually supplanted the latter, and by a process which was originally the absorption of much of the jua gentium into the jua civile, it subsequently became recognized as a constituent part of Roman Law, and was gradually welded into a complete system of jurisprudence. The confusion between jua gentium and international law is said to be entirely modern. For a bibliography of this subject, see Hershey, Int. L. 64. See Morey, Rom. L. 59-71; Inteenationai. Law; Jus Civile; Jus Natubale. JUS GLAD 1 1 (Lat the right of the sword). Supreme jurisdiction. The right to absolve from or condemn a man to death. JUS HABENDI (Lat). The right to have a thing. The right to be put into actual pos^session of property to which one is entitled. and profits of a parsonage or rectory. Total.; Moz. A W. JUS H^REOITATIS. The right of succession as an heir, or of Inheritance. See Hub.

In the civil and old Englishlaw. <A right of digging on another's land. Inst. 2, 3, 2; Bract. fol. 222.