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The Legal Status of Albania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Angelo Piero Sereni
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Extract

On April 7, 1939, the Italian news agency, Stefani, announced officially that Italian troops had landed in Albania. Having overcome some resistance, they entered Tirana, the capital, the following day and then rapidly completed the occupation of the country. An attempt at legal justification followed this military action. The Italian press announced that after the landing of troops an Albanian provisional committee, quickly formed, convoked an Assembly composed of delegates from all Albanian provinces. On April 12, 1939, this Assembly, having vested itself with full powers, declared the decadence of the preceding régime and offered the crown of Albania to the king of Italy. The Italian law of April 16, 1939, n. 580, declared that the king of Italy, having accepted the crown of Albania, assumed for himself and for his successors the title of King of Italy and Albania, Emperor of Ethiopia. Then followed a series of measures legally entrusting Italy with full control over Albania.

Type
International Affairs
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , April 1941 , pp. 311 - 317
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1941

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References

1 The author is deeply indebted to ProfessorRizzo's, GiambattistaLa Unione dell'Albania con l'Italia e lo Statuto del Regno d'Albania (1939).Google Scholar Professor Rizzo's study contains a very valuable analysis of the legal problems considered herein.

2 This new formula is to be used in the title of Italian laws and judgments (Ital. law, May 5, 1939, n. 660). The Great Seal of the Italian State has been modi fied to bear the new title (Ital. royal decree, June 1, 1939, n. 876).

3 The pact and the explanatory letter are published in 60 Treaty Series of the League of Nations, p. 27.

4 The treaty and the explanatory letter are published in 69 Treaty Series of the League of Nations, p. 343.

5 The agreements are the following: (1) convention for the port of Durazzo; (2) agreement for settlement of the financial situation of the Albanian state; (3) agreement for liquidation of the loan of June 26, 1931; (4) agreement for agricultural loan of 10 million gold francs; (5) agreement for loan for the establishment of the Albanian Tobacco Monopoly; (6) provisional commercial agreement. These agreements are published in the Dictionnaire de Droit International, issued by the Académie Diplomatique, Vol. III, without date, in an appendix to the article “Albania.”

6 The hypothesis was advanced that the Italian government intended to counterbalance the action of the other Axis partner, who, a few weeks earlier, had invaded what remained of Czechoslovakia. It was also suggested that the invasion might have been intended to warn the other Balkan states not to join the British-French coalition. Nor was there lack of suggestion that the Italian government desired to gain a cheap success to bolster its domestic prestige. The official Italian explanation, i.e., that the intervention was provoked by an attempt of King Zog of Albania to create a misunderstanding between Italy and Jugoslavia, does not appear to have been convincing.

7 On the contrary, in the case of Austria, annexed by Germany on March 13, 1939, the notification to the League of Nations that Austria's membership had ceased on March 13, 1939, was addressed by Germany.

8 New York Times, June 16, 1940.

9 See Sereni, , “Agency in International Law,” American Journal of International Law, Vol. 34 (1940), p. 640.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 See Rizzo, La Unione, cit., p. 37.

11 On June 16, the Albanian Fascist Corporative Council ratified a decree providing (Art. 1) that: “The Kingdom of Albania considers itself at war with all nations against which Italy is at war—at present or in the future” (New York Times, June 16, 1940). However, this is not an international act, but a domestic act which can always be repealed.