84. THE MEANING OF INDEPENDENCE We now must try to find exactly what we mean when we speak of States as independent. Clearly we do not mean that the Sovereign State lives in isolation. It is no truer of the State than the individual that "In the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown, We mortal millions live alone." In 1711 that characteristic Englishman, Joseph Addison, wrote after a visit to the Royal Exchange: "Nature seems to have taken a particular care to discriminate her blessings among the different regions of the world, with an eye to this mutual intercourse and traffic among mankind, that the natives of the several parts of the globe might have a kind of dependence upon one another and be united together by their common interest."22 Long before 1914 it would have been truer to say of the members of the family of nations that they were interdependent than that they were independent in 22 The Spectator, No. 69. A the ordinary sense of the word. Full independence is inconsistent with relations. fortiori it is inconsistent with the existence of law. A man who is a law to himself cannot be said to live under the law. There can be no need for international law if there are no international relations. 24 23 John Austin described an independent political society as one which was not merely a limb or member of another political society. Hall defines independence as "the power of giving effect to the decisions of a will which is free, in so far as absence of restraint by other persons is concerned," whilst Halleck found 25 the essential qualities of independence in “the right of will and judgment and the full capacity to contract obligations." But the definitions of the lawyers help us here even less than in the case of sovereignty. 66 $5. THE RIGHTS OF INDEPENDENCE If we wish to discover and understand the meaning of independence, we must examine 23 loc. cit., p. 227. 24 Op. cit., Pt. i., ch. 2, § 10. rather the rights which are supposed to attach to a State because of its independence; for "independence does not at all mean boundless liberty of action."2" "Every State," says Wheaton," "has certain sovereign rights to which it is entitled as an independent moral being." These rights may be summarized as follows: (1) The right to self-preservation. This includes the right of self-defence, and that defence may take the form of preventing as well as of repelling an attack. As a means to self-preservation a State has the right to erect fortifications, levy troops, and maintain naval forces, uncontrolled, and the exclusive right to use troops in its own territory. (2) The right to increase its national dominions, wealth, population, and power by all innocent and lawful28 means. 26 Oppenheim, International Law, Pt. i., ch. 1, § 97, p. 149. 27 Op. cit., p. 89. Wheaton treats as distinct the conditional international rights to which sovereign States are entitled, i.e., those to which they are only entitled under particular circumstances, for example, in a state of war. The distinction is unreal, for the rights of war flow from the right of self-preservation. 28 This clearly makes the statement as meaningless as it is safe : it begs the whole question. (3) The right to monopolize its own trade and to grant special privileges to other nations. (4) The right to establish, alter or abolish its own internal constitution and to choose its rulers as well as its form of government. (5) The right to prohibit the introduction of foreigners on its territory, and to expel them when they are there. (6) The right to territorial inviolability. (7) The right to make treaties or alliances with whom it will. And in addition the so-called rights of sovereignty and of equality may with equal propriety be treated as rights of independence. We have already seen" that in Austin the notion of an Independent Political Society and the notion of sovereignty are interdependent, and that Wheaton defines external sovereignty as independence. How difficult it is to distinguish between sovereignty and independence or to think clearly about either will be realized by any one who cares to take the trouble to compare the statements made by 29 Above, p. 29. 9930 31 Halleck on this subject. We are first told that "the mere fact of dependence does not prevent a State from being regarded in international law as a separate and distinct sovereignty, capable of enjoying the rights and incurring the obligations incident to that condition, "30 and that the sovereignty of a particular State is not necessarily destroyed either by mere nominal obedience to the commands of others or even by an habitual influence exercised by others over its councils. But if by political organization or treaties of unequal alliance or protection, a State has parted with its rights of negotiation and treaty and has lost its essential attributes of independence, it can no longer be regarded as a sovereign State." Yet we are a little later informed that "the very fact of the sovereignty" of the sovereign State "implies its independence of the control of any other State"; that by reason of its independence it may exercise all rights incident to its sovereignty as a separate, distinct, and independent society; and that these rights are 30 International Law (4th Edition), vol. i., ch. 3, p. 71. |