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I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 7 construction would encourage private development and would assure the states of continued control of their own waters. When rivers such as the Colorado or the Rio Grande were international in nature, Carpenter believed that additional considerations for compact negotiation were necessary, but the framework for settling disputes was similar to the relationship between sovereign states. International problems on rivers were usually addressed first by the nations' ambassadors. Lacking success, the nations went to war. Interstate problems could be addressed by commissioners. If they failed, or if the states preferred a fight, they would have to engage in the equivalent of war by entering a suit in the Supreme Court. Carpenter's studies of case lawl2 convinced him that international precedents would help justify the argument for interstate compacts. The authority he most frequently cited was the 1895 opinion of Attorney General Judson Hannon "respecting the claims of the Republic of Mexico to a preferred right, by prior appropriation, to the uses of the water of the Rio Grande River."13 Harmon argued that "a claim of international servitude upon a stream by a lower nation upon the principle of a preferred right to the use of the water. . . need not be respected by the upper nation. . . ." The upper nation could legallv develop its territory and make all needful use of the waters emanating from within its boundaries irrespective of any claims from the lower nation The upper nation did not have to yield any of its water until such a time as it saw fit to make some concession by treaty, and then, "as a matter of policy and not of international law. " In his conclusion, however, Harmon left open the possibility of a sharing agreement by means of a treaty with Mexico based on the "consideration of comity." It was this consideration of comity which Carpenter applied to