(3) By admission of old states. (4) By admission of former barbarous communities. (5) Individual and collective recognition. (c) Act of recognition. (d) Premature recognition. (e) Conditions. (ƒ) Recognition irrevocable. (g) Consequences. (1) The recognizing state. § 19. Definition A State is a sovereign political unity. It is of the relations of states that public international law mainly From the nature of its subject-matter it is a treats. juridical, historical, and philosophical science.1 These sovereign political unities may vary greatly. unity however The (a) Must be political, i.e. organized for public ends as understood in the family of nations and not for private ends as in the case of a commercial company, a band of pirates, or a religious organization. (b) Must possess sovereignty, i.e. supreme political power beyond and above which there is no political power. It is not inconsistent with sovereignty, that a state should voluntarily take upon itself obligations to other states, even though the obligations be assumed under stress of war, or fear of evil. § 20. Nature From the nature of the state as a sovereign political unity it must be self-sufficient, and certain conditions are therefore generally recognized as necessary for its existence from the standpoint of international law.2 (a) Moral. In order that a state may be regarded as within the "family of nations," and within the pale of international Law, it must recognize the rights of other states and acquiesce in its obligations toward them. This is considered a moral condition of state existence. (b) Physical. A state must also possess those physical resources which enable it to exist as territory, etc. (c) Communal. A state must possess a body of men so related as to warrant the belief in the continued 1 Holtzendorff, "Introduction droit public," 44. 2 Hall, § 1 p. 18; I., Rivier, § 3, 9, I. existence of the unity. Each state may be its own judge as to the time when these relations are established in a given body of men, and the recognition of a new state is fitting. That such conditions are recognized as prerequisites of state existence from the point of view of international law is not due to the essential nature of the state, but rather to the course of development of international law; as Hall says, "The degree to which the doctrines of international law are based upon the possession of land must in the main be attributed to the association of rights of sovereignty or supreme control over human beings with that of territorial property in the minds of jurists at the period when the foundations of international law were being laid."1 (d) External Conditions. The external relationship of the state rather than the internal nature is the subject of consideration in international law. For local law a community may enter upon state existence long before this existence is recognized by other nations, as in the case of Switzerland before 1648. Until recognition by other states of its existence becomes general, a new state cannot acquire full status in international law; and this recognition is conditioned by the policy of the recognizing states. § 21. Recognition of New States (a) State existence de facto is not a question of international law but depends upon the existence of a sovereign political unity with the attributes which 1 Hall, § 1, p. 20. |