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6 - Sovereignty, Territory and Jurisdiction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2025

By
Malgosia Fitzmaurice  and
Paul Gragl
General editor
Randall Lesaffer
Edited by
Robert Kolb  and
Momchil Milanov
Randall Lesaffer
Affiliation:
KU Leuven and Tilburg University
Robert Kolb
Affiliation:
Université de Genève
Momchil Milanov
Affiliation:
International Court of Justice
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Summary

This chapter deals with questions of sovereignty, territory and jurisdiction during the League of Nations era. It discusses how the concept of sovereignty developed until the League era and how it was understood then. Questions of territory and jurisdiction are closely linked with sovereignty, but, given the immense scope of this topic, it will only be considered as far as it affects the central substance of the chapter. This general exposition of the concept of sovereignty will be followed by an explication how the interwar period saw the emergence of, first, its general principle of horizontal protection of the territorial and jurisdictional aspect of states by international law; second, structured exceptions to this principle qua its vertical limitation of sovereignty through the League system; and third, curious cases where the territorial and jurisdictional powers of states had to be reconciled with other innovative legal principles such as human rights and self-determination. These explications will be illustrated and substantiated by a selection of the relevant cases decided by the Permanent Court of International Justice and other judicial bodies.

Keywords

sovereigntyjurisdictionterritoryPCIJminoritiesextraterritoriality
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of International Law , pp. 162 - 195
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Further Reading

Besson, Samantha, ‘Sovereignty, international law, and democracy’, European Journal of International Law, 22 (2011) 373–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costelloe, Daniel, ‘Conceptions of state jurisdiction in the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of International Justice’ in Stephen Allen, Daniel Costelloe, Fitzmaurice, Malgosia, Gragl, Paul and Guntrip, Edward (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Jurisdiction in International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2019) 456–80.Google Scholar
Craven, Matthew, and Parfitt, Rose, ‘Statehood, self-determination, and recognition’ in Evans, Malcolm (ed.), International Law (5th edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2018) 177–226.Google Scholar
Crawford, James, The Creation of States in International Law (2nd edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2006).Google Scholar
de Visscher, Charles, Theory and Reality in Public International Law (transl. Corbett, Percy E., Princeton: Princeton University Press 1957).Google Scholar
Hammarskjöld, M. Åke, ‘The Permanent Court of International Justice and its place in international relations, Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 9 (1930), 467–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hathaway, Oona A., and Shapiro, Scott J., The Internationalists and Their Plan to Outlaw War (London: Allen Lane 2017).Google Scholar
Kayaoğlu, Turan, Legal Imperialism. Sovereignty and Extraterritoriality in Japan, the Ottoman Empire, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelsen, Hans, Das Problem der Souveränität (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck 1920).Google Scholar
Kohen, Marcelo G., ‘Memel territory statute, interpretation of, case’ in Wolfrum, Rüdiger (ed.), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (2nd edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013) n.p.Google Scholar
Koskenniemi, Martti, The Gentle Civiliser of Nations. The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mik, Cesary, ‘State sovereignty and european integration: a study in public international law, EU law, and Polish constitutional law’ in Walker, Neil (ed.), Sovereignty in Transition (Oxford: Hart Publishing 2003) 367–400.Google Scholar
Milanov, Momchil, ‘L’extraterritorialité avant la territorialisation de l’État: Essai sur le développement historique d’un concept protéen’ in Graff, Thibaut Fleury and Buxbaum, Hannah (eds.), Extraterritoriality (Leiden: Brill 2022) 129–89.Google Scholar
Neff, Stephen C., Justice among Nations. A History of International Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2014).Google Scholar
Schmitt, Carl, The Concept of the Political (expanded edn, transl. Schwab, G., Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwebel, Stephen M., ‘Human rights in the World Court’, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, 24 (1991) 945–70.Google Scholar
Scott, George, The Rise and Fall of the League of Nations (New York: Macmillan 1974).Google Scholar
Spiermann, Ole, International Legal Argument in the Permanent Court of International Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2005).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verzijl, J.H.W., International Law in Historical Perspective, vol. 1, General Subjects (Leiden: Sijthoff 1968).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weitz, Eric D., ‘From the Vienna to the Paris system: international politics and the entangled histories of human rights, forced deportations, and civilizing missions’, American Historical Review, 113 (2008) 1313–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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