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which was that "immediately or as soon as circumstances will permit, existing limitations upon China's political, jurisdictional and administrative freedom of action be removed." The subject was discussed at the sixth meeting on November 25th, at which a subcommittee was appointed to draft resolutions. This subcommittee met on November 28th and adopted three resolutions, which were subsequently adopted as Resolution No. 4 by the Conference at the fourth plenary session on December 19, 1921.

This resolution provided for the appointment of a commission composed of one representative from each of the Powers, and a representative from China, which should meet to inquire into the present practice of extraterritorial jurisdiction in China, and into the laws and judicial system and the methods of judicial administration of China, with a view to reporting their findings of fact and their recommendations as to such means as they may find suitable to improve the existing conditions of the administration of justice in China, and to assist and further the efforts of the Chinese Government to effect such legislation and judicial reforms as would warrant the several Powers in relinquishing, either progressively or otherwise, their respective rights of extraterritoriality.

In pursuance of this resolution, the Extraterritorial Commission convened at Peking on January 14, 1926. It is presided over by Mr. Strawn, the American Commissioner, as Chairman, the Honorary President of the Commission being the Minister of Justice of China, Mr. Ma Chung Wu. The Chinese Commissioner, Dr. Wang Chung Hui, was one of the Chinese delegates at the Washington Conference, and has been the President of the Law Codification Commission of China, charged with compiling the modern codes of China, modeled on the western systems of jurisprudence.

This commission is required to submit its report within one year from the date of its first session or by January 14, 1927. Each of the Powers shall be free to accept or reject all or any portions of its recommendations. But in no case shall any of the Powers make the acceptance of all or any portion of such recommendations depend either directly or indirectly upon the granting by China of any special concession, favor, benefit, or immunity, whether political or economic.

This would seem to prevent the requiring of the opening of the whole of China to trade as a quid pro quo for the relinquishment of present treaty rights. In the end it would appear that China will be required to negotiate individually and not collectively with the several Powers.

SPHERES OF INFLUENCE: AN ASPECT OF SEMI

SUZERAINTY

BY GEDDES W. RUTHERFORD

Associate Professor of Government, Iowa State College

Austen Chamberlain, British Secretary of Foreign Affairs, declared in the House of Commons, December 15, 1924, that Great Britain would "regard as an unfriendly act any attempt at interference in the affairs of Egypt by any other Power, and would consider any aggression against the territory of Egypt as an act to be repelled with all the means at their command." Similar statements have frequently been made by the responsible ministers of the Powers when discussing "spheres of influence." It is probably not possible to give a precise meaning to the phrase "sphere of influence" because, as Hall says, "perhaps in its indefiniteness consists its international value." Nevertheless, the phrase has been applied specifically to characterize the control of portions of Asia and Africa, certain islands in the Caribbean, and of regions in Central America. In these regions are to be found in operation arrangements, some secret and some public, stipulated either by treaty, diplomatic declaration, "gentlemen's agreements," or effected, ofttimes, by military or economic penetration, varying greatly in degree and intensity, which enable Powers and their citizens to enjoy advantages in these regions without exercising, necessarily, sovereign control.

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This discussion proposes to consider: I. The characteristics or privileges of an influencing Power in an influenced region; II. The comparison between spheres of influence and other types of semi-suzerainty.

The characteristics or privileges which a Power exercises over a sphere of influence may be considered as positive and negative. On the one hand, in that an influencing Power may employ a variety of devices which attempt to prevent other Powers from getting a foothold in the influenced region, the term, in the words of Ilbert, "has merely a negative meaning." On the other hand, the establishment of a sphere of influence over a region may be tantamount to the establishment of superior control, such control usually "being manifested through native agencies and by way of influence rather than by direct administration."3

Turning first to the negative aspects which spheres of influence may possess, we may note that they may take one or more of the following forms:

1 Hall, W. E., Foreign Powers and Jurisdiction of the British Crown, p. 28. The American Secretary of State, in commenting on the Franco-Moroccan treaty (1912), stated "that it is not sufficiently detailed and concrete in its provisions to permit of submission to this country's treaty-making power." Foreign Relations of the United States, 1914, p. 906. Ilbert, C., Government of India, 3d ed., p. 369, n. 1.

Naval War College, International Law Situations, 1902, p. 35.

1. The territories or regions under influence may come under the principle of exclusion. This principle was expressed by former Secretary Lansing upon the occasion of the purchase of the Virgin Islands by the United States, as follows: "The Caribbean is within the peculiar sphere of influence of the United States, especially since the completion of the Panama Canal, and the possibility of a change of sovereignty of any of the islands now under foreign jurisdiction is of grave concern to the United States."4 The principle is stated somewhat more explicity in the communication (1921) sent by the British Government relative to the renouncing of the British Protectorate of Egypt in 1914: "The immunity of Egypt from the dominant influence of any other great Power is of primary importance." 5

The principle of exclusion may be effected in devious ways: First, many understandings amount to "an agreement between two states that one of them will abstain from interfering or exercising influence within certain territories, which, as between the contracting parties, are reserved for the operations of the other." Secondly, the principle may be effected between the state over which the influence is to be established and the Power exercising the influence by treaty or convention." Finally, the principle of exclusion may be attained by the unilateral act of one state. Examples of this method may be found in the following statements. Lord Knutsford, Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1890, said: "Spheres of action' is a term I do not wish to define but it amounts to this: we should not allow the Portuguese, Germans, or any foreign nation or republic to settle down and annex territory" (certain portions of Africa.) 8

As Lord Knutsford's announcement applies the principle of exclusion to Africa, so the Monroe Doctrine might be thought of as applying it to the Americas by a unilateral act. "We declare that we should consider any attempt on their part (European Powers) to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety." The dominant idea in these announcements, whether achieved through bilateral or unilateral arrangements, is the exclusion of the activities of other Powers, the consequent reservation by the privileged state of certain privileges and, in some cases, obligations, and a determination, on the part of the Power exercising the influence, to enforce, if need be, these stipulations by military measures. It should be observed, however, that these announcements do not necessarily, to use the words of Reinsch, "refer to any positive exercise of authority. . . ."9

U. S. Sen. Doc. 686, 64th Cong. 2d Sess., p. 5.

$ 114 Br. and For. State Papers, p. 207.

Ilbert, C., op. cit., p. 399, n. 1.

' For example, the Franco-Moroccan treaty, 1912, 106 Br. and For. State Papers, 1027; the Platt Amendment, 1907, 31 U. S. Stat. at Large, p. 897; and the treaty between the United States and Haiti, 1915, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1915, p. 451.

* Keane, A. H., Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel (Africa), Vol. I, p. 20. • Colonial Government, p. 103.

2. Spheres of influence, although, for the most part, only representing alienation in disguise-this particular form often being adopted merely to "spare the susceptibilities of the ceding state"-not infrequently are the result of agreements which stipulate non-alienation. In the first place, a state over which the influence is to be exercised may agree not to alienate territory to any other Power. An example of this is the treaty between the United States and Haiti (1915) by which Haiti engaged "not to surrender any territory... by sale, lease, or otherwise . . . to any foreign government.' A second form which non-alienation may take is that in which a Power pledges itself to an equal not to alienate to another equal either the territories of an influenced state or the privileges which it exercises in such territories. Thus, in the convention between France and Spain regarding Morocco the fifth article stated that: "L'Espagne s'engage a n'alienir ni ceder sous aucune forme, même a titre temporaire, ses droits dans tout ou partie du territoire composant sa zone d'influence.""

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3. The country over which the influence is exercised releases its control over foreign affairs and this control is transferred to the influencing state, although this is not always the case; for in the pursuance of her Nicaraguan policy, the United States "has exerted her influence ; but she has not taken over the foreign relations of Nicaragua.

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Two important observations are to be made at this juncture. In the first place, the extent to which influenced states lose jurisdiction over their foreign affairs is determined by the stipulations fixed in treaties and other arrangements, and differ widely. I shall later examine the various gradations of control in considering the positive privileges enjoyed by an influencing Power in the influenced state. 13 Secondly, the loss of control over foreign affairs by influenced states gives rise to divergences of opinion in regard to the status of such states as international personalities. These divergences may now be properly examined.

Baty is of the opinion that "loss of control over foreign affairs is . . . an almost conclusive criterion of the loss of existence as an international personality." 14 "14 Consequently, spheres of influence, protectorates, etc., have,

10 39 U. S. Stat. at Large, Part II, p. 1658, Art. XI; Supplement to this JOURNAL, Vol. 10, p. 234.

11 106 Br. and For. State Papers, p. 1027.

12 Percy, Lord Eustace, The Responsibilities of the League, pp. 90-92. 13 Infra, pp. 305-307.

14 Baty, T., "Protectorates and Mandates," The British Year Book of International Law, 1921, p. 110. Ilbert thinks that "the arrangement on which a 'sphere of influence' is based has, of itself, no international validity," for it depends on the individual circumstances. Op. cit., p. 369, n. 2. On the other hand, Snow states that "it was by the 'Hay Proposals', apparently, that the term 'sphere of influence' first received international recognition as a term describing a legitimate international institution." See "The Shantung Question and Spheres of Influence," in his The American Philosophy of Government: Essays, p. 350; also the Nation (N. Y.), International Relations Section, Sept. 20, 1919.

in his opinion, no international status outside of that possessed by the influencing or protecting Power. On the other hand, Cobbett leans to the view that spheres of influence have not necessarily lost separate status. Semi-sovereign states, of which spheres of influence are possibly a type, are "for certain purposes and under certain limitations . . . recognized as possessing a separate status or personality." 15 Thus according to the treaty between the United States and Cuba (1903), Article I provides that: "The Government of Cuba shall never enter into any treaty or other compact with any foreign Power or Powers which will impair or tend to impair the independence of Cuba." 16 In other respects, Cuba continues to enjoy full rights of diplomatic intercourse with other states, e.g., the right to send and receive ambassadors, immunity from suit in the courts of a foreign state, the right to be represented at formal international conferences; and it is subject to the obligations of a sovereign state.

4. Spheres of influence sometimes "appear in the form of areas from which one Power seeks to exclude the influence of another without manifesting any intention of advancing a future claim on its own account."17 The establishment of buffer states 18 (as, for instance, those located on the northern Indian frontier), results from the attempt of the influencing Power to check the ambitions of a rival; beyond the attainment of this object the influencing Power does not go. In other cases, however, "a sphere of influence is the phrase vaguely used to describe an area which the Power enjoying it wishes to possess but is not prepared immediately to occupy." 19 In short, the influencing Power might be thought of as entitled to exercise a "claim of first option to the exercise of commercial, industrial, and possibly political rights within the region in question," 20 without that Power complying with all the requirements of effective occupation. It is true, of course, that the Act of Berlin (1885) stated that "The signatory Powers ... recognize the obligation to assure, in the territories occupied by them ... the existence of an authority sufficient to cause acquired rights to be respected . . ." 21 Great Britain contended for this principle of effective occupation on the occasion of the Anglo-Portuguese dispute in 1887, concerning rival claims of the two Powers respecting certain African spheres of influence. Nevertheless, in the absence of effective occupation, the doc

15 Cobbett, Leading Cases and Opinions, 2d ed., p. 10.

16 Foreign Relations of the United States, 1904, p. 243.

17 Fenwick, C. G., Wardship in International Law, p. 33.

18 See agreement between Great Britain and Russia respecting Persia, Afghanistan, and Thibet (1907), Mowat, R. B., Select Treaties and Documents, p. 12; 100 Br. and For. State Papers, p. 557.

19 Smith, F. E., International Law, 4th ed. by J. Wylie, p. 71; see also Collected Papers by John Westlake on Public International Law, ed. by L. Oppenheim, pp. 171–177.

20 Willoughby, W. W., and Fenwick, C. G., Types of Restricted Sovereignty, p. 10.

21 U. S. Sen. Misc. Doc. 1st Sess. 49th Cong. Vol. 2, No. 68, p. 13; 112 Br. and For. State Papers, p. 906.

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