CHAPTER I HEADS OF STATES, AND FOREIGN OFFICES I POSITION OF HEADS OF STATES ACCORDING TO Hall, § 97-Phillimore, ii. §§ 101 and 102-Hershey, No. 256-Bluntschli, §§ 115-125-Holtzendorff in Holtzendorff, ii. pp. 77-81-Ullmann, § 40 --Rivier, i. § 32-Nys, ii. pp. 378-382-Fiore, ii. No. 1097-Bonfils, No. 632-Mérignhac, ii. pp. 294-305-Bynkershoek, De Foro Legatorum (1721), c. iii. § 13-Satow, Diplomatic Practice, i. §§ 6-12. of a Head § 341. As a State is an abstraction from the fact that Necessity a multitude of individuals live in a country under a for every sovereign Government, every State must have a head as State. its highest organ, which represents it, within and without its borders, in the totality of its relations. Such head is the monarch in a monarchy, and a president, or a body of individuals, such as the Bundesrath of Switzerland, in a republic. The Law of Nations prescribes no rules as regards the kind of head a State may have. Every State is, naturally, independent regarding this point, and possesses the faculty of adopting any constitution it likes and of changing such constitution according to its discretion. Some kind or other of a head of the State is, however, necessary according to International Law, as without a head there is no State in existence, but anarchy. Recognition of § 342. In case of the accession of a new head of a Hond of State, other States are, as a rule, notified. The latter States. usually recognise the new head through some formal act, such as a congratulation. But neither such notification, nor recognition, is strictly necessary according to International Law, as an individual becomes head of a State, not through the recognition of other States, but through Municipal Law. Such notification and recognition are, however, of legal importance.1 For, through notification, a State declares that the individual concerned is its highest organ, and has, by Municipal Law, the power to represent the State in the totality of its international relations. And through recognition the other States declare that they are ready to negotiate with such individual as the highest organ of his State. But recognition of a new head by other States is in every respect a matter of discretion. A State has not the right to demand from other States recognition of its new head. Thus Russia, Austria, and Prussia refused until 1848 recognition to Isabella, Queen of Spain, who had come to the throne as an infant in 1833. Again, in 1914, the United States refused to recognise President Huerta of Mexico. But in the long run recognition cannot, in practice, be withheld, for without it international intercourse is impossible, and States with selfrespect will exercise retorsion if recognition is refused to the heads they have chosen. Thus, when, after the unification of Italy in 1861, Mecklenburg and Bavaria refused to recognise Victor Emmanuel as King of Italy, Count Cavour revoked the exequatur of the consuls of these States in Italy. But it must be emphasised that recognition of a new head of a State by no means implies the recognition of such head as the legitimate head of that State. Recognition is, in fact, nothing else than the declaration of 1 See above, § 75. |