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PART SECOND..

ABSOLUTE INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS OF STATES.

CHAPTER I.

RIGHT OF SELF-PRESERVATION AND INDEPENDENCE.

THE rights, which sovereign States enjoy with regard

§ 1. Rights of sovereign States, with

respect to

to one another, may be divided into rights of two sorts: primitive, or absolute rights; conditional, or hypothetical one another, rights.1

Every State has certain sovereign rights, to which it is entitled as an independent moral being; in other words, because it is a State. These rights are called the absolute international rights of States, because they are not limited to particular circumstances.

The rights to which sovereign States are entitled, under particular circumstances, in their relations with others, may be termed their conditional international rights; and they cease with the circumstances which gave rise to them. They are consequences of a quality of a sovereign State, but consequences which are not permanent, and which are only produced under particular circumstances. Thus war, for example, confers on belligerent or neutral States certain rights, which cease with the existence of the war.

Of the absolute international rights of States, one of $2. Right the most essential and important, and that which lies servation.

of self-pre

1 Klüber, Droit des Gens Moderne de l'Europe, § 36.

at the foundation of all the rest, is the right of self-preservation. It is not only a right with respect to other States, but a duty with respect to its own members, and the most solemn and important which the State owes to them. This right necessarily involves all other incidental rights, which are essential as means to give effect to the principal end.

Right of

Among these is the right of self-defence. This again self-defence involves the right to require the military service of all modified by the equal its people, to levy troops and maintain a naval force, to rights of other States, build fortifications, and to impose and collect taxes for or by treaty. all these purposes. It is evident that the exercise of these absolute sovereign rights can be controlled only by the equal correspondent rights of other States, or by special compacts freely entered into with others, to modify the exercise of these rights.

In the exercise of these means of defence, no independent State can be restricted by any foreign power. But another nation may, by virtue of its own right of self-preservation, if it sees in these preparations an occasion for alarm, or if it anticipates any possible danger of aggression, demand explanations; and good faith, as well as sound policy, requires that these inquiries, when they are reasonable and made with good intentions, should be satisfactorily answered.

Thus, the absolute right to erect fortifications within the territory of the State has sometimes been modified by treaties, where the erection of such fortifications has been deemed to threaten the safety of other communities, or where such a concession has been extorted in the pride of victory, by a power strong enough to dictate the conditions of peace to its enemy. Thus, by the Treaty of Utrecht, between Great Britain and France, confirmed by that of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, and of Paris, in 1763, the French government engaged to demolish the fortifications of Dunkirk. This stipulation, so humiliating to France, was effaced in the treaty of peace concluded between the two countries, in 1783, after the war of the American Revolution. By the treaty signed at Paris, in 1815, between the Allied Powers and France, it was stipulated that the fortifications of Huningen, within the French territory, which had been constantly a subject of uneasiness to the city of Basle, in the Helvetic Confederation, should be demolished, and should never be renewed or replaced

by other fortifications, at a distance of less than three leagues from the city of Basle.1

of interven

The right of every independent State to increase its 3. Right national dominions, wealth, population, and power, by tion or interall innocent and lawful means; such as the. pacific ference. acquisition of new territory, the discovery and settlement of new countries, the extension of its navigation and fisheries, the improvement of its revenues, arts, agriculture, and commerce, the increase of its military and naval force; is an incontrovertible right of sovereignty, generally recognized by the usage and opinion of nations. It can be limited in its exercise only by the equal correspondent rights of other States, growing out of the same primeval right of self-preservation. Where the exercise of this right, by any of these means, directly affects the security of others, as where it immediately interferes with the actual exercise of the sovereign rights of other States, there is no difficulty in assigning its precise limits. But where it merely involves a supposed contingent danger to the safety of others, arising out of the undue aggrandizement of a particular State, or the disturbance of what has been called the balance of power, questions of the greatest difficulty arise, which belong rather to the science of politics than of public law.

The occasions on which the right of forcible interference has been exercised, in order to prevent the undue aggrandizement of a particular State, by such innocent and lawful means as those above mentioned, are comparatively few, and cannot be justified in any case, except in that where an excessive augmentation of its military and naval forces may give just ground of alarm to its neighbors. The internal development of the resources of a country, or its acquisition of colonies and dependencies at a distance from Europe, has never been considered a just motive for such interference. It seems to be felt, with respect to the latter, that distant colonies and dependencies generally weaken, and always render more vulnerable the metropolitan State. And with respect to the former, although the wealth and population of a country is the most effectual means by which its power can be augmented,

1 Martens, Recueil de Traités, tom. ii. p. 469.

such an augmentation is too gradual to excite alarm. To which it must be added that the injustice and mischief of admitting that nations have a right to use force, for the express purpose of retarding the civilization and diminishing the prosperity of their inoffensive neighbors, are too revolting to allow such a right to to be inserted in the international code. Interferences, therefore, to preserve the balance of power, have been generally confined to prevent a sovereign, already powerful, from incorporating conquered provinces into his territory, or increasing his dominions by marriage or inheritance, or exercising a dictatorial influence over the councils and conduct of other independent States.1 (a)

Senior, Edinb. Rev. No. 156, art. 1, p. 329.

(a) [The fitting out of expeditions against Cuba, in 1851, from the United States, though in violation of their laws, led to an intervention on the part both of England and France, so far as sending orders to their naval commanders to prevent, by force, the landing of adventurers from any nation on the island of Cuba, with hostile intent. Both powers deemed it incumbent on them to make known these instructions to the government of the United States.

In reply to an oral communication made, on the 27th September, 1851, by the British Chargé d'Affaires to the acting Secretary of State, it was stated, that "The President is of opinion, that so far as relates to this republic and its citizens, such an interference as would result from the execution of those orders, if admitted to be rightful in themselves, would nevertheless be practically injurious in its consequences, and do more harm than good. Their execution would be the exercise of a sort of police over the seas in our immediate vicinity, covered as they are with our ships and our citizens; and it would involve, moreover, to some extent, the exercise of a jurisdiction to determine what expeditions were of the character denounced, and who were the guilty adventurers engaged in them."

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In a note of 22d October, 1851, to M. de Sartiges, Mr. Crittenden adverts to the fact, that the proposed orders could not be carried into effect without a visitation, examination, and consequent detention of our vessels on our shores, and in the great channels of our coasting trade, and which must invest British and French citizens with the jurisdiction of determining in the first instance, at least, what are the expeditions denounced in their orders, and who are the guilty persons engaged in them, an exercise of power and jurisdiction that could hardly fail to lead to abuses and collisions perilous to the peace that now happily prevails. He adds: "There is another point of view, in which this intervention, on the part of France and England, cannot be viewed with indifference by the President. The geographical position of the island of Cuba, in the Gulf of Mexico, lying at no great distance from the mouth of the river Mississippi, and in the line of the greatest current of the commerce of the United States, would become, in the hands of any powerful European nation, an object of just jealousy and apprehension to the people of this country. A due regard to their own safety and interest must, therefore, make it a matter

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