The process by which Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania attained legal sovereignty is typical and serves as an example of the process whereby other new States in post-war Europe came into being. There is no doubt that after World War II the important lessons presented by the Baltic case may be drawn upon in planning future European international relations.

It is a sophistry to which human nature commonly resorts, when one wants to perform an act and at the same time to avoid its necessary consequences, to give it a fresh name. Thus, if people wish to live in concubinage and yet to be received in decent society, they call it “companionate marriage,” and if statesmen wish to rule and exploit a country without conferring on its inhabitants the grand privileges of citizenship, they call the annexation “protection”; whilst if they desire to impose tariffs on trade, and at the same time to avoid the connotation of scarcity and dearness, they avoid the awkward word “protection,” and style the process “safeguarding.”

While recognized members of the community of nations are bound by the established rules of international law without any explicit act of acceptance, they cannot become bound by new rules without express or implied consent. International law and municipal law have different sources and sanctions, consequently a state’s municipal law cannot be taken as the measure of either its rights or its obligations under international law.