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OUTLINE OF CHAPTER V

STATES

20. DEFINITION OF A STATE.

(a) Must be political unity.

(b) Must possess sovereignty.

21. CONDITIONS OF STATE EXISTENCE

(a) Moral.

(b) Physical.

(c) Communal.

(d) External relationship.

22. RECOGNITION OF NEW STATES.
(a) De facto existence of a state.
(b) Varying circumstances of recognition.
(1) By division.

(2) By union.

(3) By admission of old states.

(4) By admission of former barbarous communities.

(5) Individual and collective recognition.

(6) Example of an act of dissolution.

(c) Acts constituting recognition.

(d) Premature recognition.

(e) Certain political conditions requisite for recognition. Recognition irrevocable.

(g) Consequences of recognition.

(1) For the recognizing state.

(2) For the recognized state.

(3) For the parent state.
(4) For other states.

CHAPTER V

STATES

20. Definition of a State

A STATE is a sovereign political unity. It is of the relations of states that public international law mainly treats. From the nature of its subject-matter it is a juridical, historical, and philosophical science. These sovereign political unities may vary greatly. The unity, however,

Must be

(a) Must be political, i.e., organized for public ends as understood in the family of nations and not political and organized for private ends as in the case of a commercial company, a band of pirates, or a

sovereign.

religious organization.

(b) Must possess sovereignty, i.e., supreme political power beyond and above which there is no political power. It is not inconsistent with sovereignty, that a state should voluntarily take upon itself obligations to other states, even though the obligations be assumed under stress of war or fear of evil.

21. Conditions of State Existence

From the nature of the state as a sovereign political unity it must be self-sufficient, and certain conditions are therefore generally recognized as necessary for its existence from the standpoint of international law.2

1 Holtzendorff, "Introduction droit public," 44.
Hall, p. 18; 1 Rivier, § 3, 9, I.

Essential con

(a) A state must be to a degree moral. In order that a state may be regarded as within the "family of nations," and within the pale of international law, it must ditions: moral, recognize the rights of other states and acquiesce in its obligations toward them. This is considered a moral condition of state existence. (b) A state must also possess those physical resources which enable it to exist, as territory, etc.

physical,

communal.

(c) A state must possess a body of men in such communal relationship as to warrant the belief in the continued existence of the unity. Each state may be its own judge as to the time when this relationship is established in a given body of men, and when the recognition of the new state is fitting.

That such conditions are recognized as prerequisites of state existence from the point of view of international law is not due to the essential nature of the state, but rather to the course of development of international law; as Hall says: "the degree to which the doctrines of international law are based upon the possession of land must in the main be attributed to the association of rights of sovereignty or supreme control over human beings with that of territorial property in the minds of jurists at the period when the foundations of international law were being laid." 1

External relationship.

(d) The external relationship of the state rather than the internal nature is the subject of consideration in international law. For local law, a community may enter upon state existence long before this existence is recognized by other nations, as in the case of Switzerland before 1648. Until recognition by other states of its existence becomes general, a new state cannot acquire full status in international law; and this recognition is conditioned by the policy of the recognizing states.

1 Hall, p. 19.

22. Recognition of New States

(a) State existence de facto is not a question of international law but depends upon the existence of a sovereign political

De facto existence of a state.

unity with the attributes which necessarily appertain to it. This de facto existence is not dependent upon the will of any other state or states.1 The entrance of the state into the international statehood, however, depends entirely upon the recognition by those states already within this circle. Whatever advantages membership in this circle may confer, and whatever duties it may impose, do not fall upon the new state until its existence is generally recognized by the states already within the international circle. These advantages and duties, as between the recognizing and recognized state, immediately follow recognition but do not necessarily extend to other states than those actually parties to the recognition. The basis of this family of nations or international circle which admits other states to membership is historical, resting on the polity of the older European states. These states, through the relations into which they were brought by reason of proximity and intercourse, developed among themselves a system of action in their mutual dealings; and international law in its beginning proposed to set forth what this sys

1 The internal acts of a de facto state are valid, whatever the attitude of the international circle. As an example, in 1777, during the Revolutionary War, the British governor of Florida made a grant of land in what is now the southern part of the United States. Fifty years later a descendant of the grantee laid claim to the land, but the Supreme Court of the United States declared: It has never been admitted by the United States that they acquired anything by way of cession from Great Britain by that treaty [of Peace, 1783]. It has been viewed only as a recognition of preëxisting rights, and on that principle the soil and the sovereignty, within their acknowledged limits, were as much theirs at the Declaration of Independence as at this hour. By reference to the treaty, it will be found that it amounts to a simple recognition of the independence and limits of the United States, without any language purporting a cession or relinquishment of right, on the part of Great Britain; .. grants of soil made flagrante bello by the party that fails, can only derive validity from treaty stipulations." Harcourt v. Gaillard, 12 Wheat. 523, 527. See also M'Ilvaine v. Coxe's Lessee, 4 Cr. 209, 212.

tem was and should be.1 This family of states could not permit new accessions to its membership unless these new states were properly constituted to assume the mutual relationships, and as to the proper qualifications for admission in each case, the states already within the family claim and exercise the right to judge. (b) The circumstances of recognition vary.

Varying cir

cumstances of recognition.

(1) The most numerous instances are in consequence of division, which involves the recognition of the existence of more than one state within the limits which had formerly been under a single jurisdiction. This may be preceded by recognition of the belligerency of a revolted community within the jurisdiction of an existing state, or may be preceded by division of an existing state into two or more states.2 In the first case recognition is a question of national policy; in the second case recognition is usually readily accorded.

(2) In modern times a new state has frequently been formed by the union of two or more existing states. The recognition in such a case usually follows immediately.

(3) A state after existence for a period of years may be formally admitted into the family of states. Japan, for centuries a de facto state, was only recently fully admitted to international statehood. Turkey, so long the dread of Europe, was formally received by the Treaty of Paris, 1856.

(4) New states may be formed in territory hitherto outside any de facto state jurisdiction, or within regions hitherto considered savage. The examples of this class are mainly African, as in the creation of the Kongo Free State under the International Asso

1 Suarez, "De Legibus," 6.

2 Wheat. D., 41 n.

3 Greater Republic of Central America, June 20, 1895, from Republics of Nicaragua, Salvador, and Honduras. Dissolved November 29, 1898.

Japan has been generally recognized since 1894, and her foreign relations were for several years in course of readjustment. This readjustment was completed as regards the United States by the treaty of November 22, 1894, which became fully operative July 17, 1899.

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