§ 63. The conception of International Persons is derived from the conception of the Law of Nations. As this law is the body of rules which the civilised States consider legally binding in their intercourse, every State which belongs to the civilised States, and is, therefore, a member of the Family of Nations, is an International Person. Sovereign States exclusively are International Persons—i.e. subjects of International Law. There are, however, as will be seen, full and not-full Sovereign States. Full Sovereign States are perfect, not-full Sovereign States are imperfect International Persons, for not-full Sovereign States are for some parts only subjects of International Law.

In contradistinction to Sovereign States which are real, there are also apparent, but not real, International Persons—namely, Confederations of States, insurgents recognised as a belligerent Power in a civil war, and the Holy See. All these are not, as will be seen,[87] real subjects of International Law, but in some points are treated as though they were International Persons, without thereby becoming members of the Family of Nations.

It must be specially mentioned that the character of a subject of the Law of Nations and of an International Person can be attributed neither to monarchs, diplomatic envoys, private individuals, or churches, nor to chartered companies, nations, or races after the loss of their State (as, for instance, the Jews or the Poles), and organised wandering tribes.[88]

§ 64. A State proper—in contradistinction to so-called Colonial States—is in existence when a people is settled in a country under its own Sovereign Government. The conditions which must obtain for the existence of a State are therefore four:

There must, first, be a people. A people is an aggregate of individuals of both sexes who live together as a community in spite of the fact that they may belong to different races or creeds, or be of different colour.

There must, secondly, be a country in which the people has settled down. A wandering people, such as the Jews were whilst in the desert for forty years before their conquest of the Holy Land, is not a State. But it matters not whether the country is small or large; it may consist, as with City States, of one town only.

There must, thirdly, be a Government—that is, one or more persons who are the representatives of the people and rule according to the law of the land. An anarchistic community is not a State.

There must, fourthly and lastly, be a Sovereign Government. Sovereignty is supreme authority, an authority which is independent of any other earthly authority. Sovereignty in the strict and narrowest sense of the term includes, therefore, independence all round, within and without the borders of the country.

§ 65. A State in its normal appearance does possess independence all round and therefore full sovereignty. Yet there are States in existence which certainly do not possess full sovereignty, and are therefore named not-full Sovereign States. All States which are under the suzerainty or under the protectorate of another State or are member States of a so-called Federal State, belong to this group. All of them possess supreme authority and independence with regard to a part of the tasks of a State, whereas with regard to another part they are under the authority of another State. Hence it is that the question is disputed whether such not-full Sovereign States can be International Persons and subjects of the Law of Nations at all.[89]

That they cannot be full, perfect, and normal subjects of International Law there is no doubt. But it is wrong to maintain that they can have no international position whatever and can never be members of the Family of Nations at all. If we look at the matter as it really stands, we observe that they actually often enjoy in many points the rights and fulfil in other points the duties of International Persons. They often send and receive diplomatic envoys or at least consuls. They often conclude commercial or other international treaties. Their monarchs enjoy the privileges which according to the Law of Nations the Municipal Laws of the different States must grant to the monarchs of foreign States. No other explanation of these and similar facts can be given except that these not-full Sovereign States are in some way or another International Persons and subjects of International Law. Such imperfect International Personality is, of course, an anomaly; but the very existence of States without full sovereignty is an anomaly in itself. And history teaches that States without full sovereignty have no durability, since they either gain in time full sovereignty or disappear totally as separate States and become mere provinces of other States. So anomalous are these not-full Sovereign States that no hard-and-fast general rule can be laid down with regard to their position within the Family of Nations, since everything depends upon the special case. What may be said in general concerning all the States without full sovereignty is that their position within the Family of Nations, if any, is always more or less overshadowed by other States. But their partial character of International Persons comes clearly to light when they are compared with so-called Colonial States, such as the Dominion of Canada or the Commonwealth of Australia. Colonial States have no international position[90] whatever; they are, from the standpoint of the Law of Nations, nothing else than colonial portions of the mother-country, although they enjoy perfect self-government, and may therefore in a sense be called States. The deciding factor is that their Governor, who has a veto, is appointed by the mother-country, and that the Parliament of the mother-country could withdraw self-government from its Colonial States and legislate directly for them.

§ 66. The distinction between States full Sovereign and not-full Sovereign is based upon the opinion that sovereignty is divisible, so that the powers connected with sovereignty need not necessarily be united in one hand. But many jurists deny the divisibility of sovereignty and maintain that a State is either sovereign or not. They deny that sovereignty is a characteristic of every State and of the membership of the Family of Nations. It is therefore necessary to face the conception of sovereignty more closely. And it will be seen that there exists perhaps no conception the meaning of which is more controversial than that of sovereignty. It is an indisputable fact that this conception, from the moment when it was introduced into political science until the present day, has never had a meaning which was universally agreed upon.[91]

§ 67. The term Sovereignty was introduced into political science by Bodin in his celebrated work, "De la république," which appeared in 1577. Before Bodin, at the end of the Middle Ages, the word souverain[92] was used in France for an authority, political or other, which had no other authority above itself. Thus the highest courts were called Cours Souverains. Bodin, however, gave quite a new meaning to the old conception. Being under the influence and in favour of the policy of centralisation initiated by Louis XI. of France (1461-1483), the founder of French absolutism, he defined sovereignty as "the absolute and perpetual power within a State." Such power is the supreme power within a State without any restriction whatever except the Commandments of God and the Law of Nature. No constitution can limit sovereignty, which is an attribute of the king in a monarchy and of the people in a democracy. A Sovereign is above positive law. A contract only is binding upon the Sovereign, because the Law of Nature commands that a contract shall be binding.[93]

The conception of sovereignty thus introduced was at once accepted by writers on politics of the sixteenth century, but the majority of these writers taught that sovereignty could be restricted by a constitution and by positive law. Thus at once a somewhat weaker conception of sovereignty than that of Bodin made its appearance. On the other hand, in the seventeenth century, Hobbes went even beyond Bodin, maintaining[94] that a Sovereign was not bound by anything and had a right over everything, even over religion. Whereas a good many publicists followed Hobbes, others, especially Pufendorf, denied, in contradistinction to Hobbes, that sovereignty includes omnipotence. According to Pufendorf, sovereignty is the supreme power in a State, but not absolute power, and sovereignty may well be constitutionally restricted.[95] Yet in spite of all the differences in defining sovereignty, all authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries agree that sovereignty is indivisible and contains the centralisation of all power in the hands of the Sovereign, whether a monarch or the people itself in a republic. Yet the way for another conception of sovereignty is prepared by Locke, whose "Two Treatises on Government" appeared in 1689, and paved the way for the doctrine that the State itself is the original Sovereign, and that all supreme powers of the Government are derived from this sovereignty of the State.

§ 68. In the eighteenth century matters changed again. The fact that the several hundred reigning princes of the member-States of the German Empire had practically, although not theoretically, become more or less independent since the Westphalian Peace enforced the necessity upon publicists to recognise a distinction between an absolute, perfect, full sovereignty, on the one hand, and, on the other, a relative, imperfect, not-full or half-sovereignty. Absolute and full sovereignty was attributed to those monarchs who enjoyed an unqualified independence within and without their States. Relative and not-full sovereignty, or half-sovereignty, was attributed to those monarchs who were, in various points of internal or foreign affairs of State, more or less dependent upon other monarchs. By this distinction the divisibility of sovereignty was recognised. And when in 1787 the United States of America turned from a Confederation of States into a Federal State, the division of sovereignty between the Sovereign Federal State and the Sovereign member-States appeared. But it cannot be maintained that divisibility of sovereignty was universally recognised in the eighteenth century. It suffices to mention Rousseau, whose "Contrat Social" appeared in 1762 and defended again the indivisibility of sovereignty. Rousseau's conception of sovereignty is essentially that of Hobbes, since it contains absolute supreme power, but he differs from Hobbes in so far as, according to Rousseau, sovereignty belongs to the people only and exclusively, is inalienable, and therefore cannot be transferred from the people to any organ of the State.

§ 69. During the nineteenth century three different factors of great practical importance have exercised their influence on the history of the conception of sovereignty.

The first factor is that, with the exception of Russia, all civilised Christian monarchies during this period turned into constitutional monarchies. Thus identification of sovereignty with absolutism belongs practically to the past, and the fact was during the nineteenth century generally recognised that a sovereign monarch may well be restricted in the exercise of his powers by a Constitution and positive law.

The second factor is, that the example of a Federal State set by the United States has been followed by Switzerland, Germany, and others. The Constitution of Switzerland as well as that of Germany declares decidedly that the member-States of the Federal State remain Sovereign States, thus indirectly recognising the divisibility of sovereignty between the member-States and the Federal State according to different matters.

The third and most important factor is, that the science of politics has learned to distinguish between sovereignty of the State and sovereignty of the organ which exercises the powers of the State. The majority of publicists teach henceforth that neither the monarch, nor Parliament, nor the people is originally Sovereign in a State, but the State itself. Sovereignty, we say nowadays, is a natural attribute of every State as a State. But a State, as a Juristic Person, wants organs to exercise its powers. The organ or organs which exercise for the State powers connected with sovereignty are said to be sovereign themselves, yet it is obvious that this sovereignty of the organ is derived from the sovereignty of the State. And it is likewise obvious that the sovereignty of a State may be exercised by the combined action of several organs, as, for instance, in Great Britain, King and Parliament are the joint administrators of the sovereignty of the State. And it is, thirdly, obvious that a State can, as regards certain matters, have its sovereignty exercised by one organ and as regards other matters by another organ.

In spite of this condition of things, the old controversy regarding divisibility of sovereignty has by no means died out. It acquired a fresh stimulus, on the one hand, through Switzerland and Germany turning into Federal States, and, on the other, through the conflict between the United States of America and her Southern member-States. The theory of the concurrent sovereignty of the Federal State and its member-States, as defended by "The Federalist" (Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay) in 1787, was in Germany taken up by Waitz,[96] whom numerous publicists followed. The theory of the indivisibility of sovereignty was defended by Calhoun,[97] and many European publicists followed him in time.

§ 70. From the foregoing sketch of the history of the conception of sovereignty it becomes apparent that there is not and never was unanimity regarding this conception. It is therefore no wonder that the endeavour has been made to eliminate the conception of sovereignty from the science of politics altogether, and likewise to eliminate sovereignty as a necessary characteristic of statehood, so that States with and without sovereignty would in consequence be distinguishable. It is a fact that sovereignty is a term used without any well-recognised meaning except that of supreme authority. Under these circumstances those who do not want to interfere in a mere scholastic controversy must cling to the facts of life and the practical, though abnormal and illogical, condition of affairs. As there can be no doubt about the fact that there are semi-independent States in existence, it may well be maintained that sovereignty is divisible.

II RECOGNITION OF STATES AS INTERNATIONAL PERSONS

Hall, §§ 2 and 26—Lawrence, §§ 44-47—Phillimore, II. §§ 10-23—Taylor, §§ 153-160—Walker, § 1—Westlake, I. pp. 49-58—Wheaton, § 27—Moore, §§ 27-75—Bluntschli, §§ 28-38—Hartmann, § 11—Heffter, § 23—Holtzendorff in Holtzendorff, II. pp. 18-33—Liszt, § 5—Ullmann, §§ 29-30—Bonfils, Nos. 195-213—Despagnet, Nos. 79-85—Pradier-Fodéré, I. Nos. 136-145—Nys, I. pp. 69-115—Mérignhac, I. pp. 320-329—Rivier, I. § 3—Calvo, I. §§ 87-98—Fiore, I. Nos. 311-320, and Code, Nos. 160-177—Martens, I. §§ 63-64—Le Normand, "La reconnaissance internationale et ses diverses applications" (1899).

§ 71. As the basis of the Law of Nations is the common consent of the civilised States, statehood alone does not include membership of the Family of Nations. There are States in existence, although their number decreases gradually, which are not, or not fully, members of that family, because their civilisation, if any, does not enable them and their subjects to act in conformity with the principles of International Law. Those States which are members are either original members because the Law of Nations grew up gradually between them through custom and treaties, or they are members which have been recognised by the body of members already in existence when they were born.[98] For every State that is not already, but wants to be, a member, recognition is therefore necessary. A State is and becomes an International Person through recognition only and exclusively.

Many writers do not agree with this opinion. They maintain that, if a new civilised State comes into existence either by breaking off from an existing recognised State, as Belgium did in 1831, or otherwise, such new State enters of right into the Family of Nations and becomes of right an International Person.[99] They do not deny that practically such recognition is necessary to enable every new State to enter into official intercourse with other States. Yet they assert that theoretically every new State becomes a member of the Family of Nations ipso facto by its rising into existence, and that recognition supplies only the necessary evidence for this fact.

If the real facts of international life are taken into consideration, this opinion cannot stand. It is a rule of International Law that no new State has a right towards other States to be recognised by them, and that no State has the duty to recognise a new State. It is generally agreed that a new State before its recognition cannot claim any right which a member of the Family of Nations has towards other members. It can, therefore, not be seen what the function of recognition could be if a State entered at its birth really of right into the membership of the Family of Nations. There is no doubt that statehood itself is independent of recognition. International Law does not say that a State is not in existence as long as it is not recognised, but it takes no notice of it before its recognition. Through recognition only and exclusively a State becomes an International Person and a subject of International Law.

§ 72. Recognition is the act through which it becomes apparent that an old State is ready to deal with a new State as an International Person and a member of the Family of Nations. Recognition is given either expressly or tacitly. If a new State asks formally for recognition and receives it in a formal declaration of any kind, it receives express recognition. On the other hand, recognition is tacitly and indirectly given when an old State enters officially into intercourse with the new, be it by sending or receiving a diplomatic envoy,[100] or by concluding a treaty, or by any other act through which it becomes apparent that the new State is actually treated as an International Person.

But no new State has by International Law a right to demand recognition, although practically such recognition cannot in the long run be withheld, because without it there is no possibility of entering into intercourse with the new State. The interests of the old States must suffer quite as much as those of the new State, if recognition is for any length of time refused, and practically these interests in time enforce either express or tacit recognition. History nevertheless records many cases of deferred recognition,[101] and, apart from other proof, it becomes thereby apparent that the granting or the denial of recognition is not a matter of International Law but of international policy.

It must be specially mentioned that recognition by one State is not at all binding upon other States, so that they must follow suit. But in practice such an example, if set by one or more Great Powers and at a time when the new State is really established on a sound basis, will make many other States at a later period give their recognition too.

§ 73. Recognition will as a rule be given without any conditions whatever, provided the new State is safely and permanently established. Since, however, the granting of recognition is a matter of policy, and not of law, nothing prevents an old State from making the recognition of a new State dependent upon the latter fulfilling certain conditions. Thus the Powers assembled at the Berlin Congress in 1878 recognised Bulgaria, Montenegro, Servia, and Roumania under the condition only that these States did not[102] impose any religious disabilities on any of their subjects.[103] The meaning of such conditional recognition is not that recognition can be withdrawn in case the condition is not complied with. The nature of the thing makes recognition, if once given, incapable of withdrawal. But conditional recognition, if accepted by the new State, imposes the internationally legal duty upon such State of complying with the condition; failing which a right of intervention is given to the other party for the purpose of making the recognised State comply with the imposed condition.

§ 74. Recognition is of special importance in those cases where a new State tries to establish itself by breaking off from an existing State in the course of a revolution. And here the question is material whether a new State has really already safely and permanently established itself or only makes efforts to this end without having already succeeded. That in every case of civil war a foreign State can recognise the insurgents as a belligerent Power if they succeed in keeping a part of the country in their hands and set up a Government of their own, there is no doubt. But between this recognition as a belligerent Power and the recognition of these insurgents and their part of the country as a new State, there is a broad and deep gulf. And the question is precisely at what exact time recognition of a new State may be given instead of the recognition as a belligerent Power. For an untimely and precipitate recognition as a new State is a violation of the dignity[104] of the mother-State, to which the latter need not patiently submit.

In spite of the importance of the question, no hard-and-fast rule can be laid down as regards the time when it can be said that a State created by revolution has established itself safely and permanently. The characteristic of such safe and permanent establishment may be found either in the fact that the revolutionary State has utterly defeated the mother-State, or that the mother-State has ceased to make efforts to subdue the revolutionary State, or even that the mother-State, in spite of its efforts, is apparently incapable of bringing the revolutionary back under its sway.[105] Of course, as soon as the mother-State itself recognises the new State, there is no reason for other States to withhold any longer their recognition, although they have even then no legal obligation to grant it.

The breaking off of the American States from their European mother-States furnishes many illustrative examples. Thus the recognition of the United States by France in 1778 was precipitate. But when in 1782 England herself recognised the independence of the United States, other States could accord recognition too without giving offence to England. Again, when the South American colonies of Spain declared their independence in 1810, no Power recognised the new States for many years. When, however, it became apparent that Spain, although she still kept up her claims, was not able to restore her sway, the United States recognised the new States in 1822, and England followed the example in 1824 and 1825.[106]

§ 75. Recognition of a new State must not be confounded with other recognitions. Recognition of insurgents as a belligerent Power has already been mentioned. Besides this, recognition of a change in the form of the government or of change in the title of an old State is a matter of importance. But the granting or refusing of these recognitions has nothing to do with recognition of the State itself. If a foreign State refuses the recognition of a change in the form of the government of an old State, the latter does not thereby lose its recognition as an International Person, although no official intercourse is henceforth possible between the two States as long as recognition is not given either expressly or tacitly. And if recognition of a new title[107] of an old State is refused, the only consequence is that such State cannot claim any privileges connected with the new title.

III CHANGES IN THE CONDITION OF INTERNATIONAL PERSONS

Grotius, II. c. 9, §§ 5-13—Pufendorf, VIII. c. 12—Vattel, I. § 11—Hall, § 2—Halleck, I. pp. 89-92—Phillimore, I. §§ 124-137—Taylor, § 163—Westlake, I. pp. 58-66—Wheaton, §§ 28-32—Moore, I. §§ 76-79—Bluntschli, §§ 39-53—Hartmann, §§ 12-13—Heffter, § 24—Holtzendorff in Holtzendorff, II. pp. 21-23—Liszt, § 5—Ullmann, §§ 31 and 35—Bonfils, Nos. 214-215—Despagnet, Nos. 86-89—Pradier-Fodéré, I. Nos. 146-157—Nys, I. pp. 399-401—Rivier, I. § 3—Calvo, I. §§ 81-106—Fiore, I. Nos. 321-331, and Code, Nos. 119-141—Martens, I. §§ 65-69.

§ 76. The existence of International Persons is exposed to the flow of things and times. There is a constant and gradual change in their citizens through deaths and births, emigration, and immigration. There is a frequent change in those individuals who are at the head of the States, and there is sometimes a change in the form of their governments, or in their dynasties if they are monarchies. There are sometimes changes in their territories through loss or increase of parts thereof, and there are sometimes changes regarding their independence through partial or total loss of the same. Several of these and other changes in the condition and appearance of International Persons are indifferent to International Law, although they may be of great importance for the inner development of the States concerned and directly or indirectly for international policy. Those changes, on the other hand, which are, or may be, of importance to International Law must be divided into three groups according to their influence upon the character of the State concerned as an International Person. For some of these changes affect a State as an International Person, others do not; again, others extinguish a State as an International Person altogether.

§ 77. A State remains one and the same International Person in spite of changes in its headship, in its dynasty, in its form, in its rank and title, and in its territory. These changes cannot be said to be indifferent to International Law. Although strictly no notification to and recognition by foreign Powers are necessary, according to the Law of Nations, in case of a change in the headship of a State or in its entire dynasty, or if a monarchy becomes a republic or vice versa, no official intercourse is possible between the Powers refusing recognition and the State concerned. Although, further, a State can assume any title it likes, it cannot claim the privileges of rank connected with a title if foreign States refuse recognition. And although, thirdly, a State can dispose according to discretion of parts of its territory and acquire as much territory as it likes, foreign Powers may intervene for the purpose of maintaining a balance of power or on account of other vital interests.

But whatever may be the importance of such changes, they neither affect a State as an International Person, nor affect the personal identity of the States concerned. France, for instance, has retained her personal identity from the time the Law of Nations came into existence until the present day, although she acquired and lost parts of her territory, changed her dynasty, was a kingdom, a republic, an empire, again a kingdom, again a republic, again an empire, and is now, finally as it seems, a republic. All her international rights and duties as an International Person remained the very same throughout the centuries in spite of these important changes in her condition and appearance. Even such loss of territory as occasions the reduction of a Great Power to a small Power, or such increase of territory and strength as turns a small State into a Great Power, does not affect a State as an International Person. Thus, although through the events of the years 1859-1861 Sardinia acquired the whole territory of the Italian Peninsula and turned into the Great Power of Italy, she remained one and the same International Person.

§ 78. Changes which affect States as International Persons are of different character.

(1) As in a Real Union the member-States of the union, although fully independent, make one International Person,[108] two States which hitherto were separate International Persons are affected in that character by entering into a Real Union. For through that change they appear henceforth together as one and the same International Person. And should this union be dissolved, the member-States are again affected, for they now become again separate International Persons.

(2) Other changes affecting States as International Persons are such changes as involve a partial loss of independence on the part of the States concerned. Many restrictions may be imposed upon States without interfering with their independence proper,[109] but certain restrictions involve inevitably a partial loss of independence. Thus if a hitherto independent State comes under the suzerainty of another State and becomes thereby a half-Sovereign State, its character as an International Person is affected. The same is valid with regard to a hitherto independent State which comes under the protectorate of another State. Again, if several hitherto independent States enter into a Federal State, they transfer a part of their sovereignty to the Federal State and become thereby part-Sovereign States. On the other hand, if a vassal State or a State under protectorate is freed from the suzerainty or protectorate, it is thereby affected as an International Person, because it turns now into a full Sovereign State. And the same is valid with regard to a member-State of a Federal State which leaves the union and gains the condition of a full Sovereign State.

(3) States which become permanently neutralised are thereby also affected in their character as International Persons, although their independence remains untouched. But permanent neutralisation alters the condition of a State so much that it thereby becomes an International Person of a particular kind.

§ 79. A State ceases to be an International Person when it ceases to exist. Theoretically such extinction of International Persons is possible through emigration or the perishing of the whole population of a State, or through a permanent anarchy within a State. But it is evident that such cases will hardly ever occur in fact. Practical cases of extinction of States are: Merger of one State into another, annexation after conquest in war, breaking up of a State into several States, and breaking up of a State into parts which are annexed by surrounding States.

By voluntarily merging into another State, a State loses all its independence and becomes a mere part of another. In this way the Duchy of Courland merged in 1795 into Russia, the two Principalities of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen in 1850 into Prussia, the Congo Free State in 1908 into Belgium, and Korea in 1910 into Japan. And the same is the case if a State is subjugated by another. In this way the Orange Free State and the South African Republic were absorbed by Great Britain in 1901. An example of the breaking up of a State into different States is the division of the Swiss canton of Basle into Basel-Stadt and Basel-Land in 1833. And an example of the breaking up of a State into parts which are annexed by surrounding States, is the absorption of Poland by Russia, Austria, and Prussia in 1795.

IV SUCCESSION OF INTERNATIONAL PERSONS

[110]

Grotius, II. c. 9 and 10—Pufendorf, VIII. c. 12—Hall, §§ 27-29—Phillimore, I. § 137—Lawrence, § 49—Halleck, I. pp. 89-92—Taylor, §§ 164-168—Westlake, I. pp. 68-83—Wharton, I. § 5—Moore, I. §§ 92-99—Wheaton, §§ 28-32—Bluntschli, §§ 47-50—Hartmann, § 12—Heffter, § 25—Holtzendorff in Holtzendorff, II. pp. 33-47—Liszt, § 23—Ullmann, § 32—Bonfils, Nos. 216-233—Despagnet, Nos. 89-102—Pradier-Fodéré, I. Nos. 156-163—Nys, I. pp. 399-401—Rivier, I. § 3, pp. 69-75 and p. 438—Calvo, I. §§ 99-103—Fiore, I. Nos. 349-366—Martens, I. § 67—Appleton, "Des effets des annexions sur les dettes de l'état démembré ou annexé" (1895)—Huber, "Die Staatensuccession" (1898)—Keith, "The Theory of State Succession, with special reference to English and Colonial Law" (1907)—Cavaglieri, "La dottrina della successione di stato a stato, &c." (1910)—Richards in The Law Magazine and Review, XXVIII. (1903), pp. 129-141—Keith in Z.V. III. (1909), pp. 618-648—Hershey in A.J. V. (1911), pp. 285-297.