6. The status of persons in international law may vary as in other branches of law according to their rights, liabilities, and disabilities. A state is regarded as having full legal status. as belligerents in time of war, political unities under Status may be determined by policy of one or more states or by public law. Turkey, after a de facto existence of many years, was formally admitted to international statehood by the Treaty of Paris, 1856. Insurrectionists recognized as belligerents obtain definite legal status, giving them, so far as hostilities are concerned, the same privileges as the state against which they are waging war. Sweden-Norway, a personal union from 1815, became two kingdoms in 1905. While the physical, moral, ethnic, or other conditions may not change, and while the reason may not always be evident for the granting of international status where it had not previously existed, yet when once granted the rights of the status must be conceded. STATES. 7. Only states in the strict sense of the word are recognized as full legal persons in international law. A recognized belligerent has a qualified status, limited to the conduct of warfare, or a protectorate may have certain rights which have not passed to the protector; but full international status appertains only to states in the strict sense of the word, as distinguished from the use of the term to designate political divisions; e. g., Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, etc., in the United States. The only state on the American continent north of Mexico which international law recognizes is the United States of America. DEFINITION OF STATE. 8. A state is a sovereign political unity. Concretely viewed, a state is a body politic possessing sovereignty. The word "state" has had many definitions. Some of these predicate of it physical, moral, ethnic, numerical, social, or other attributes. State is, however, a political concept, and the characteristics sometimes attributed to it may be conditions of its existence, but are not in themselves essential to a state. The definition given by Grotius is rather of a unity to be hoped for than of a state as existing in his day or since: "A state is a perfect body of freemen associated for the enjoyment of rights and of common advantages." "1 From the point of view of international law recognized political sovereignty is the test of statehood. Any body politic possessing sovereignty is entitled to be called a state. The definition, "A state is a sovereign political unity," implies that the unity is not necessarily of any particular form, but must be political and sovereign; i. e., must be "for public ends as understood in the family of nations," in distinction from pri 1 Est autem civitas coetus perfectus liberorum hominum, juris fruendi et communis utilitatis causa sociatus. De Jure Belli ac Pacis, Lib. I, cap. I, XIV, 1. vate ends, as in a commercial company, and the unity must be self-sufficient and self-determining. Territory and population are conditions necessary for the existence of a state as for any other social institution; e. g., the church or family. The form of the internal organization of a state, the relations of its parts, and the like, have often received much attention in books on international law. Such matters, however, belong to the field of constitutional and other branches of public law, rather than to international law, which is more concerned with the external relationship than with the form of internal organization. There is for international law no distinction between monarchy and republic, confederation and federation, simple and composite states. It may be necessary for diplomats to know how far a given organ of state has authority to act for the state-e. g., an Emperor or President; but this relates to constitutional rather than international law. As Phillimore says: "It is a sound general principle, and one to be laid down at the threshold of the science of which we are treating, that international law has no concern with the form, character, or power of the constitution or government of a state, with the religion of its inhabitants, the extent of its domain, or the importance of its position and influence in the commonwealth of nations." 2 A state de facto may possess full right to regulate its internal affairs without interference from any foreign state, internal sovereignty; but this does not make the state a person in the family of nations. To be a member of the family of nations a state must be recognized as such by those already within the international circle. From the time of such recognition, the state is regarded as in possession of external sovereignty. There has been much discussion as to the Holy See. Some claim that it is a full state; others deny it such position. Certainly the Pope has been, and is, even by the Italian Law of Guaranty of May 13, 1871, regarded as having the attributes commonly possessed by sovereigns. He possesses inviolability. He is exempt from foreign jurisdiction. He receives the honors of a sovereign. He has the right to send 21 Phillimore, International Law, LXIII, p. 81. and to receive diplomatic agents. The area over which he exercises temporal jurisdiction is very limited, and the jurisdiction is qualified.3 ACQUISITION OF INTERNATIONAL STATUS. 9. A de facto state, possessing all the necessary characteristics required by constitutional law for full statehood, may exist, and yet such a state may not have full status in international law. This status is acquired at the present time on admission to the number of states now regarded as constituting the family of nations. The entrance of the state into 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 party 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 law was and should be. 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. Other states were from time to time and in various ways recognized as members of the family of nations. The family 3 For bibliography in regard to the Holy See, Bonfils, Droit International Public, §§ 370, ff. 4 Wilson & Tucker, Int. Law (5th Ed.) § 22, p. 47. |