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Can an Anarchy be a State?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2017

Thomas Baty*
Affiliation:
Associate of the Institut de Droit International, and of the Académie Diplomatique

Extract

Even in this questioning age, when one is disposed to question everything, it may be taken as an axiom of international law that a nation must possess a government. To be a state, with the rights of a state, a people must occupy a definite territory, and they must have a government which can represent them to the outside world, and through which they can accept and discharge responsibility.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1934

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References

1 The question of whether these successive states may not be morally or legally bound to assume some part of the Empire's obligations, incurred for value received, is of course another affair.

2 Needless to say, no “legal title” or legitimacy in constitutional law is here meant. The legal title is an international title, resting solely on the fact of unchallenged supremacy— unchallenged, that is, via facli.

3 The question is for the moment reserved, of whether there has in fact been a demise or incapacity. These are questions which involve primarily not the succession, but the rights of a subsisting ruler; they cannot be left to the determination of ministers

4 Zealand offered to secede, and unite with England. The offer had to be declined with thanks. 5 Canons of International Law, pp. 207, 224.

5 Canons of International Law, pp. 207, 224.

6 The only circumstance militating against this obvious conclusion is the fact that most, though not all, of Ferdinand's ministers remained to work with Joseph.

7 Adams to White, Jan. 16, 1822, cited, Moore, Int. Law Dig., § 46 (Vol. I, p. 132). 8 He had actually returned to his favorite Brazil. By his will he appointed Princess Isabel regent in Portugal after his decease.

8 He had actually returned to his favorite Brazil. By his will he appointed Princess Isabel regent in Portugal after his decease.

9 Perhaps the Azores were scarcely an exception. The population seems to have accepted Michael, like the rest of Portugal. It was a military clique which seized them for Mary.

10 Thus, Wheaton (§ 23, Dana's edit.), “The temporary suspension of that obedience and of that authority, in consequence of a civil war, does not necessarily extinguish the being of the state.” (There was some foundation in Grotius’ works for the opposite opinion.)

11 International Law, 6th ed., p. 21.

12 Principes du Droit des Gens, Vol. I, p. 66.

13 Grotius is against this erroneous idea of Hall's, for he limits the importance of the possibility of the divided parts of a state coming together again to the case of violent severance from without. “Corporis ratio tollitur si cives AUT sponte ob pestilentiam AUT seditionem à societate discedant; AUT vi ita distrahantur, ut coire non possint, quod bellis accidit interdum.” If the want of a single government, that is, is due to external force, the resulting disunion must be a severance beyond repair: an opportunity must be afforded to recover from the acts of an external enemy. But where it is due to the spontaneous discord of its own people, there is no need to consider such a possibility. It is the act of the people themselves, and it is final. (De Jure Belli ac Pads, II. ix. 5.)

14 Cours de Droit International Public, § 86.

15 Manuel de Droit International, § 214.

16 Traitié de Droit International Public, I, p. 254. The curious reader will find it interesting to compare Wheaton's text in these passages with Pradier-Fodéré's. The latter is scarcely even a paraphrase: it resembles rather a mangled translation. See note 10, supra.

17 Ibid., I, p. 145, § 69.

18 Ibid., p. 152, § 81.

19 As in the case of Spain of the time of the abdication of Amadeus and the delayed accession of Alphonso XII.

20 As above noted, Grotius put it in a dozen pithy words: “Corporis ratio tollitur si cives, … sponte ob pestilentiam aut sedilionem à societate discedant.” (De Jure Belli ac Pads, II. ix. 5.) The analogy of dispersal on account of pestilence shows that Grotius is not thinking of rebellion, but of a dispersal on equal terms, owing to the disappearance of the common government.