Former concern sition of § 210. No unanimity exists among writers on the Doctrine Law of Nations with regard to the modes of acquiring ing Acqui- territory on the part of the members of the Family of Territory. Nations. The topic owes its controversial character to the fact that the conception of State territory has undergone a great change since the appearance of the science of the Law of Nations. When Grotius created that science, State territory used to be still, as in the Middle Ages, more or less identified with the private property of the monarch of the State. Grotius and his followers applied, therefore, the rules of Roman Law concerning the acquisition of private property to the acquisition of territory by States. As nowadays, as far as International Law is concerned, every analogy to private property has disappeared from the conception of State territory, the acquisition of territory by a State can mean nothing else than the acquisition of sovereignty over such territory. It is obvious that under these circumstances the rules of Roman Law concerning the acquisition of private property can no longer be applied. Yet the fact that they have been applied in the past has left traces which can hardly be obliterated; and they need not be obliterated, since they contain a good deal of truth in agreement with the actual facts. But the different modes of acquiring territory must be taken from the real practice of the States, and not from Roman Law, although the latter's terminology and commonsense basis may be made use of. What Modes of Acquisition of § 211. States as living organisms grow and decrease in territory. If the historical facts are taken into consideration, different reasons may be found to account there are. for the exercise of sovereignty by a State over the Territory 1 See above, § 168. The distinction between imperium and dominium in Seneca's dictum: omnia rex imperio possidet, singuli dominio was well known, and Grotius, ii. c. 3, § 4, mentions it, but the consequences thereof were nevertheless not deduced. (See Westlake, Papers, pp. 129-133, and Westlake, i. pp. 86-90.) different sections of its territory. One section may have been ceded by another State, another section may have come into the possession of the owner in consequence of accretion, a third through subjugation, a fourth through occupation of no State's land. As regards a fifth section, a State may say that it has exercised its sovereignty over the same for so long a period that the fact of having had it in undisturbed possession is a sufficient title of ownership. Accordingly, five modes of acquiring territory may be distinguished, namely: cession, occupation, accretion, subjugation, and prescription. Most writers recognise these five modes. Some, however, do not recognise prescription; some assert that accretion creates nothing else than a modification of the territory of a State; and some do not recognise subjugation at all, or declare it to be only a special case of occupation. It is for these reasons that some writers recognise only two or three1 modes of acquiring territory. Be that as it may, all modes, besides the five mentioned, enumerated by some writers, are in fact not special modes, but only special cases of cession.2 And whatever may be the value of the opinions of publicists, so much is certain that the practice of the States recognises cession, occupation, accretion, subjugation, and prescription as distinct modes of acquiring territory. vative § 212. The modes of acquiring territory are correctly Original divided according as the title they give is derived from the and Deri. title of a prior owner State, or not. Cession is therefore a Modes of derivative mode of acquisition, whereas occupation, ac- tion. cretion, subjugation, and prescription are original modes.3 1 Thus Gareis (§ 70) recognises cession and occupation only, whereas Heimburger (pp. 106-110) and Holtzendorff (ii. p. 254) recognise cession, occupation, and accretion only. * See below, § 216. Such alleged special modes are sale, exchange, gift, marriage contract, testamentary 3 Lawrence (§ 74) enumerates Acquisi Conception of State Territory. XIII CESSION Grotius, ii. c. 6-Hall, § 35-Lawrence, § 76-Phillimore, i. §§ 262-276— Twiss, i. § 138-Walker, § 10-Halleck, i. pp. 164-167-Taylor, § 227 -Moore, i. §§ 83-86-Hershey, Nos. 174-178-Bluntschli, §§ 285-287Hartmann, § 61-Heffter, §§ 69 and 182-Holtzendorff in Holtzendorf, ii. pp. 269-274-Gareis, § 70-Liszt, § 10-Ullmann, §§ 97-98-Bonfils, Nos. 564-571-Mérignhac, ii. pp. 487-498-Despagnet, Nos. 381-391Pradier-Fodéré, ii. Nos. 817-819-Rivier, i. pp. 197-217-Nys, ii. pp. 10-37-Calvo, i. § 266-Fiore, ii. §§ 860-862, and Code, Nos. 147-164 and 1058-Martens, i. § 91-Heimburger, Der Erwerb der Gebietshoheit (1888), pp. 110-120-Phillipson, Termination of War and Treaties of Peace (1916), pp. 277-334. § 213. Cession of State territory is the transfer of Cession of Sovereignty over State territory by the owner-State to another State. There is no doubt whatever that such cession is possible according to the Law of Nations, and history presents innumerable examples of such transfer of sovereignty. The Constitutional Law of the different States may or may not lay down special rules 1 for the transfer or acquisition of territory. Such rules can have no direct influence upon the rules of the Law of Nations concerning cession, since Municipal Law can neither abolish existing nor create new rules of International Law. But if such municipal rules contain constitutional restrictions on the Government with regard to cession of territory, these restrictions are so far important that such treaties of cession concluded by heads of States or Governments as violate these restrictions are not binding.3 Subjects of § 214. Since cession is a bilateral transaction, it has Cession. two subjects—namely, the ceding and the acquiring State. Both subjects must be States, and only those cessions in which both subjects are States concern the Law of Nations. Cessions of territory made to private persons and to corporations 1 by native tribes or by States outside the dominion of the Law of Nations do not fall within the sphere of International Law, neither do cessions of territory by native tribes made to States 2 which are members of the Family of Nations. On the other hand, cession of territory made to a member of the Family of Nations by a State as yet outside that family is real cession and a concern of the Law of Nations, since such State becomes through the treaty of cession in some respects a member of that family.3 Cession. § 215. The object of cession is sovereignty over such Object of territory as has hitherto already belonged to another State. As far as the Law of Nations is concerned, every State as a rule can cede a part of its territory to another State, or by ceding the whole of its territory can even totally merge in another State. However, since certain parts of State territory, as for instance rivers and the maritime belt, are inalienable appurtenances of the land, they cannot be ceded without a piece of land.4 The controverted question whether permanently neutralised parts of a not permanently neutralised State can be ceded to another State must be answered in the affirmative,5 although the Powers certainly can exercise an intervention by right. On the other hand, a permanently neutralised State could not, except in the case of mere frontier regulation, cede a part of its neutralised territory to another State without the consent of the Powers. Nor could a State under suzerainty or protectorate cede a part or the whole of its 1 See above, § 209 (2). * See below, §§ 221 and 222. 'See above, § 103. 'See above, §§ 175 and 185. ⚫ Thus in 1860 Sardinia ceded her neutralised provinces of Chablais See above, § 96, and the litera- Form of territory to a third State without the consent of the superior State. Thus, the Ionian Islands could not in 1863 have merged in Greece without the consent of Great Britain, which exercised a protectorate over these islands. § 216. The only form in which a cession can be effected is an agreement embodied in a treaty between the ceding and the acquiring State. Such treaty may be the outcome of peaceable negotiations or of war, and the cession may be one with or without compensation. If a cession of territory is the outcome of war, it is the treaty of peace which stipulates the cession among its other provisions. Such cession is regularly one without compensation, although certain duties may be imposed upon the acquiring State, as, for instance, of taking over a part of the debts of the ceding State corresponding to the extent and importance of the ceded territory, or that of giving the individuals domiciled on the ceded territory the option to retain their old citizenship or, at least, to emigrate. Cessions which are the outcome of peaceable negotiations may be agreed upon by the interested States from different motives and for different purposes. Thus Austria, during war with Prussia and Italy in 1866, ceded Venice to France as a gift, and some weeks afterwards France on her part ceded Venice to Italy. The Duchy of Courland ceded in 1795 its whole territory to, and voluntarily merged thereby, in Russia; in the same way the then Free Town of Mulhouse merged in France in 1798, the Congo Free State in Belgium in 1908, and the Empire of Korea in Japan in 1910. Cessions have in the past often been effected by transactions which are analogous to transactions in private business life. As long as absolutism was reigning over Europe, it was not at all rare for territory to be ceded in marriage contracts or by testamentary disposi |