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Notes on World Sovereignty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2017

Robert Lansing
Robert Lansing*
Affiliation:
State of the United States
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Extract

Having reviewed in the preceding Notes the characteristics and qualities of the sovereignty which finds expression in a state, it is proposed to consider now the more extensive type of sovereignty which affects politically the entire human race and territorially the whole earth, and to which reference was made in the Introductory Note. The reason for considering the lesser form first has been stated, and the soundness of that reason will become more apparent in the course of the succeeding argument.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , January 1921 , pp. 13 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1921

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References

1 This JOURNAL, Vol. 1 (1907), pp. 105, 207.

2 Bluntschli, , Theory of the State, 3d Edition, pp. 26, 31, 32.Google Scholar

3 This JOURNAL, Vol. 1, p. 297.

4 In this and in subsequent places where the sovereignty and independence of a state are spoken of, the phrases are used for the sake of brevity. In all such cases it should be understood that the sovereignty and independence of the sovereign of the state are intended.

5 “According to the definition of an independent political society which is stated or supposed by Hobbes in his excellent treatises on government, a society is not a society political and independent, unless it can maintain its independence, against attacks from without, by its own intrinsic or unaided strength. But if power to maintain its independence by its own intrinsic strength be a character or essential property of an independent political society, the name will scarcely apply to any existing society, or to any of the past societies which occur in the history of mankind. The weaker of such actual societies as are deemed political and independent, owe their precarious independence to positive international morality, and to the mutual fears or jealousies of stronger communities. The most powerful of such actual societies as are deemed political and independent, could hardly maintain its independence, by its own intrinsic strength, against an extensive conspiracy of other independent nations.” ( Austin, , Principles of Jurisprudence, 5th Edition, London, 1885, p. 187.Google Scholar)

6 Lawrence, , Principles of International Law, p. 241.Google Scholar

7 Wheaton, , International Law, p. 45.Google Scholar

8 This JOURNAL., Vol. 1, p. 317.

9 Blackstone, Google Scholar, Bk. 4, ch. 5.

10 Quoted in Wheaton's International Law, p. 39.

11 “The duties which are imposed by these rules [of international morality] are enforced by moral sanctions, by apprehension on the part of sovereigns and nations of incurring the hostility of other States, in case they should violate maxims generally received and respected by the civilized world.” (Wheaton, preface, p. excii.)