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Identity of States Under International Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2017

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Abstract

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Editorial Comment
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1955

References

1 Thus Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic Republics, Finland, Iraq after the first World War, and Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Israel, Burma, Ceylon, Indonesia, Pakistan after the second World War.

2 Thus the Turkish Republic and the Soviet Union, although the latter denied its identity with the Russian Empire.

3 The Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. For identity with Serbia, see Tomiteh, La formation de l’État yougoslave 1927; for a new state, with convincing arguments, see Kaufmann, E., in Zeitschrift für Völkerrecht, Vol. 31 (1923/24), pp. 211251 Google Scholar.

4 The Republic of Austria, 1918: Austria regarded herself as a new state; but for identity with the Empire of Austria, see the Peace Treaty of St. Germain; Hungary, 1918: for identity with pre-war Hungary, see the Peace Treaty of Trianon; this was also the attitude of postwar Hungary herself.

5 Czechoslovakia, Albania, Ethiopia. See also the divergent opinions as to whether the Austria of 1945 is identical in law with the Austria of 1918. For identity, the Austrian Government since 1945, and most Austrian writers (Adamovich, Verdross, Verosta, Klinghoffer, Seidl-Hohenveldern). For a new state, the last Chancellor of the 1938 Austria, Schuschnigg (“The Austrian Peaee” in Annals, 1948, pp. 106–118), Kelsen, most German (e.g. W. Schätzel, H. Jellinek) and many foreign writers. The Moscow Declaration of 1943 is highly ambiguous in its wording; also doubtful is the Austrian Nationality Law of 1945. The practice of states at the time of the German annexation of Austria in 1938, in the period between 1938 and 1945, and in 1945 and after, varies not only with different states, but sometimes with one and the same state. There are national court decisions in favor of identity (e.g., Bruni v. Pizzorno, Corte d’Appello di Torino, July 28, 1948) and for the recognition of the German annexation (e.g., Matter of Mangold’s Patent (1951), 68 R. P. C. 1, Lloyd). See also the recent decision of the West German Federal Administrative Court in Berlin, ruling that 75,000 Austrians living in Germany must be regarded as German nationals. Judge Wichert ruled that the annexation of Austria by the Third Reich had been acknowledged in international law, and, therefore, the legality of German citizenship, acquired by the Austrians in 1938, could not be challenged. This, the judge said, was also the basis of the Austrian Citizenship Law of 1945. Only German law can determine, under international law, how German citizenship is acquired and lost. The Austrian state, the judge stated, had been restored as a result of a political decision of the Allies, without, however, regulating this problem. This problem, he stated, would have to be settled in the state treaty or by agreement between Austria and Germany (The New York Times, Oct. 31, 1954, p. 2). Thus the present situation of Austria “is far from being free from dangerous ambiguities” (M. Rheinstein in Michigan Law Review, Vol. 47 (1948), p. 34).

6 Germany, 1945. See Kunz, Josef L., “The Status of Occupied Germany: a Legal Dilemma,” in The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Dee. 1950), pp. 538565 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 The classical example is the formation of the Kingdom of Italy. For a new state, see D. Anzilotti, in Rivista di Diritto Internationale, 1912, pp. 1–33; for identity with the Kingdom of Piedmont—and that has become the dominant opinion—Romano, ibid., pp. 345–367. The problem was still involved in a recent case, Gastaldi v. Lepage Hemery (Annual Digest, 1929–30, Case No. 43).

8 But Cansacchi sees in “identity” and “continuity” two different problems, particularly with regard to “resurrected” states. “Identity,” according to him, means only identity after the state has come into existence again, whereas “continuity” pretends that the state also continued during the period of its extinction.

9 Verdross, A., Völkerrecht (2nd ed., Vienna, 1950), pp. 161163 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Kelsen, H., Principles of International Law (New York, 1953), pp. 259264, 416Google Scholar.

11 Herz, Die Identität der Staaten (Düsseldorf, 1931); idem in Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht, 1935, pp. 241–268; Badawi, M. T., La continmté et l’extinction de la personnalité de l’état (Thesis, Lyon, 1940)Google Scholar.

12 Verdross, A., “Die völkerrechtliche Identität der Staaten,” in Festschrift für Heinrich Klang (Vienna, 1950), pp. 1821 Google Scholar.

13 Cansacchi, Giorgio, “Realtà e finzione nell’identità degli Stati,” in Comunicazioni e Studi, Vol. IV (Milan, 1952), pp. 2397 Google Scholar.

14 E.g. Cavaglieri, Fedozzi, Strupp, but also de Louter. See recently, particularly, Arrangio-Ruiz, , Gli Enti soggetti dell’ordinamento internazionale (Milan, 1951)Google Scholar; Quadri, R., Diritto Internazionale Pubolieo (Palermo, 1951)Google Scholar. This is also the basic presupposition of Cansacchi, whereby his whole, otherwise very interesting, investigation is vitiated a priori.

15 Théories et Réaltiés en Droit International Public (Paris, 1953), pp. 204–205.

16 E.g., under Roman law loss of personality through becoming a prisoner of war. On the other hand, a slave, a thing in law, becomes a person thiough manumission; see also the mort civile of former French law.

17 The young U. S. with five million and the present U. S. with one hundred and sixty million of inhabitants is, of course, the identical state in law.

18 Thus, e.g., the identity of the British Empire in spite of the coming into existence of the U. S.; of Sweden in spite of the separation of Norway; of The Netherlands in spite of Belgium and Indonesia; of Russia in spite of the territorial loss brought about at the end of the first World War through the coming into existence of Poland, Finland, and the Baltic Republics.

19 Hence the so-called “principle of the variable limits of treaties.”

20 The Boer Republics after the “trek.”

21 E.g., Corea, 1910.

22 An exception, laid down by a norm of international law, is that even total occupation of the territory of a state and destitution of its government by a belligerent occupant does not constitute conquest and subjugation and leaves, therefore, the identity of the state in question intact, as long as allies of the occupied state continue fighting. (Poland, Yugoslavia in the second World War).

23 P. Guggenheim, Beiträge zur völkerrechtlichen Lehre vom Staatenwechsel (1925), pp. 18, 19; idem, Lehrbuch des Völkerrechts (1948), Vol. I, p. 407.

24 Thus, Hall, W. E., A Treatise on International Law (7th ed., Oxford, 1917), p. 22 Google Scholar.

25 Thus, F. v. Liszt, Das Völkerrecht (12th ed., 1925), p. 275.

26 Thus, Oppenheim-Lauterpacht, International Law. A Treatise (7th ed., London, 1948), Vol. I, p. 148, n. 2Google Scholar.

27 The Tinoco Arbitration, this Journal, Vol. 18 (1924), p. 147.

28 See Acting Secretary of State to Attorney General of New Jersey, Oct. 31, 1922 (U. S. For. Rel., 1922, Vol. II, p. 715), and many court decisions, e.g., The Sapphire (U. S. Supreme Court, 1871, 11 Wall. 164), Lehigh Valley Railroad Co. v. State of Russia (U. S. 1927, 21 F. 2nd 396), and many others.

29 Cansacchi, following Kelsen on this point, holds that the state becomes extinguished only when the revolutionary change can no longer be based on the pre-revolutionary “Grundnorm” of the constitution.

30 Fricker and Preuss had, very differently, put the emphasis on territory as the most important element, by asserting that any territorial change, also without revolution, necessarily extinguishes the state, a statement fully in contradiction with positive international law.

31 Thus, e.g., Anzilotti, Cavaglieri, Fedozzi, Ottolenghi. Cansacchi also insists on the element of population, but only as an element for what is for him basically a fiction.

32 Lawrence, T. J. (The Principles of International Law (7th ed., London, 1925), p. 89)Google Scholar writes that revolutionary changes, in spite of non-recognition of the de facto government, do not affect the identity of the state; but “a state loses its existence where it is obliterated as a subject of international law.”

33 As with the Boer Republics in 1902 or Corea in 1910.

34 E. Plischke, in Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 69 (June, 1954), p. 262.

35 Op. cit. (above, note 15), p. 208.