national status by one unity through some form of merging in another political unity has been particularly common in international relations. The modification of international status through the loss or giving up of a part of the independence possessed by a political unity may make it impossible for that unity to perform obligations which rested upon it previous to this modification of its status. If the absolute destruction of the people of a state should occur, obligations resting upon them as a body politic would of necessity fall, though obligations resting on the territorial basis of the state might be sustained. Similarly as a general principle it is maintained that, so far as treaty relations and public obligations are not in the main political, but territorial, they remain binding upon the local territory, even though the international person formerly having jurisdiction over the territory has lost status in the family of nations. The general principle is "res transit cum suo onere." This succession is generally restricted to those obligations which are of the nature of property rights and to those which relate to the territory as public domain.37 36 36 English decision, United States v. McRae, 8 L. R. Eq. 72, quoted in United States v. Smith, 1 Hughes, 347, Fed. Cas. No. 16,335. "I apprehend it to be clear, public, universal law that any government which de facto succeeds to any other government, whether by revolution or restoration, conquest or reconquest, succeeds to all the public property, to everything in the nature of public property, and to all rights in respect to the public property of the displaced power, whatever may be the nature or origin of the title of such displaced power. Any such public money in any treasury, any such public property found in any warehouse, fort, or arsenal, would, on the success of the new or restored power, vest ipso facto in such power, and it would have the right to call to account any fiscal or other agent or any debtor or accountant to or of the persons who had exercised and had ceased to exercise the authority of a government, the agent, debtor, or accountant having been the agent, debtor, or accountant of such persons in their character or pretended character of a government. But this is the right of succession, is the right 37 Claim of the Manila Railway Company, Magoon, Law of Civil Government under Military Occupation (2d Dd.) p. 177, ff; 23 Ops. Attys. Gen. 181, 451; 1 Moore, §§ 96-98. When the whole or a portion of one state becomes a part of another state as a result of conquest, cession, or otherwise, local obligations pass to the acquiring state. Contracts relating to the public interests of the acquired territory, entered into by the state formerly having sovereignty, are usually acknowledged by the new sovereign. Provisions to this effect occur in many treaties, and when not specifically mentioned such obligations are usually assumed, on proof that the claim is just and equitable. Similarly, concessions relating to the acquired territory are usually continued.38 of representation, is a right, not paramount, but derived, I will not say under, but through, the suppressed and displaced authority, and can only be enforced in the same way, and to the same extent, and subject to the same correlative obligations and rights, as if that authority had not been suppressed and displaced, and was itself seeking to enforce it." Scott's Cases, 89. 38 "9. It is clear that a state which has annexed another is not legally bound by any contracts made by the state which has ceased to exist, and that no court of law has jurisdiction to enforce such contracts if the annexing state refuse to recognize them. But the modern usage of nations has tended in the direction of the acknowledgment of such contracts. After annexation, it has been said, the people change their allegiance; but their relations to each other and their rights of property remain undisturbed, and property includes those rights which lie in contract. 'La conquête change les droits politiques des habitants du territoire, et transfere au nouveau souverain la propriété du domaine public de son cedant. Il n'en est pas de même de la propriété privé qui demeure incommutable entres les mains de ses legitimes possesseurs.' Concessions of the nature of those which were the subject of our inquiry presented examples of mixed public and private rights. They probably continue to exist after annexation until abrogated by the annexing state, and, as matter of practice in modern times, where treaties have been made on the cession of territory, have been often maintained by agreement. In considering what the attitude of a conqueror should be towards such concessions, we are unable to perceive any sound distinction between a case where a state acquires part of another by cession and a case where it acquires the whole by annexation. The opinion that in general private rights should be respected by the conqueror, though illustrated and supported by jurists by analogies drawn from the Roman law of inheritance, is based on the principle, which is one of ethics rather than of law, that the area of war and of suffering should be, so far as possible, narrowly con The protection of private rights is held to be obligatory upon the new sovereign as on the old. Sovereignty and political allegiance are transferred, but private rights and obligations are only so far modified as may be necessary for the exercise of jurisdiction by the state which has acquired the territory. "The people change their allegiance; their relation to their ancient sovereign is dissolved; but their relations to each other, and their rights of property, remain undisturbed." 39 fined, and that noncombatants should not, where it is avoidable, be disturbed in their business; and this principle is at least as applicable to a case where all as where some of the provinces of a state are annexed. "10. Though we doubt whether the duties of an annexing state towards those claiming under concession or contracts granted or made by the annexed state have been defined with such precision in authoritative statement, or acted upon with such uniformity in civilized practice as to warrant their being termed rules of international law, we are convinced that the best modern opinion favors the view that, as a general rule, the obligations of the annexed state towards private persons should be respected. Manifestly the general rule must be subject to qualification; e. g., an insolvent state could not by aggression, which practically left to a solvent state no other course but to annex it, convert its worthless into valuable obligations. Again, an annexing state would be justified in refusing to recognize obligations incurred by the annexed state for the immediate purposes of war against itself; and probably no state would acknowledge private rights, the existence of which, caused, or contributed to cause, the war which resulted in annexation." Report of the Transvaal Concessions Commission, British State Papers, South Africa, 1901, Cd. 623, p. 7. Maintaining the contrary to this last clause, Oppenheim says: "A state which has subjugated another would be obliged to take over even such obligations as have been incurred by the annexed state for the immediate purpose of the war which led to its subjugation." 1 International Law, 122. 39 United States v. Percheman, 7 Pet. 51, 8 L. Ed. 604. |