counting from the last ratification. This period ended on March 17, 1918, and Nicaragua was unwilling to renew the treaty because the decisions of the Court on September 30, 1916, and March 9, 1917, were adverse to her.

On August 5, 1914, Nicaragua and the United States concluded a treaty by which the United States, in consideration of a payment of $3,000,000 in trust to Nicaragua to be used for general education, public works, etc., acquired (1) the exclusive right to construct an interoceanic canal through Nicaragua, (2) a lease of Great and Little Corn Islands in the Caribbean Sea, and (3) the right to construct a naval station in the Gulf of Fonseca on the Pacific.1 When the terms of this agreement became known, Costa Rica filed a complaint in the Central American Court of Justice claiming that the Treaty (Bryan-Chamorro) was in violation of the treaty rights acquired by her under the Cañas-Jerez Treaty (1858), the Cleveland Award (1888), and the Central American Treaty of Washington (1907). She took the stand that the violation of these rights made the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty void. Over the protest of Nicaragua, the Court took jurisdiction of the case, and rendered a decision in favor of Costa Rica. The essential point in the case was the fact that the San Juan River which would form part of the canal route was the boundary of the two states, and Costa Rica had full rights of commercial navigation in it. The clause in the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty relating to the Gulf of Fonseca brought Salvador into the controversy. This Gulf is a meeting place of the territories of Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, and its waters were considered by the three states to be owned in common. The concession of a naval base was therefore, in the opinion of Salvador, a violation of her rights and a menace to her national security. She brought action against Nicaragua alleging violation of Articles 2 and 9 of the Treaty of Washington (1907), and was supported by the decision of the Court which declared Nicaragua to be under the obligation to "reëstablish and maintain the legal status that existed" prior to the Treaty. Throughout the proceedings in both cases, Nicaragua asserted and reasserted her sovereign right to U. S. Treaty Series, no. 624.

conclude treaties without consulting other states; and after the adverse decisions, did not move to annul the obnoxious treaty. On the other hand, the United States, which had been instrumental in forming the Court, remained silent when a treaty to which she was a party threatened the destruction of the Court. And so the Central American experiment in international judiciary came to an end.

REFERENCES FOR CHAPTER XII

BAKER, ERNEST. The Constitution of the League of Nations: Judicial.

(New Europe, 10: 196-203, March 13, 1919.)

BALCH. World Court in the Light of the United States Supreme Court.

OPPENHEIM. The League of Nations and Its Problems, p. 60-74. WHITE. Constitutionality of the Proposed International Prize Court.

(American Journal of International Law, 2: 490-506.)

CENTRAL AMERICAN LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

(World Peace Foundation. Pamphlet Series, 7: no. 1, p. 110-151.)

COSTA RICA V. NICARAGUA.

(American Journal of International Law, 11: 181-229.)

GONZALEZ, S. R. The Neutrality of Honduras and the Question of the Gulf of Fonseca.

(American Journal of International Law, 10: 509–542.)

SALVADOR V. NICARAGUA.

(American Journal of International Law, 11: 674-730.)

CHAPTER XIII

INTERNATIONAL ADMINISTRATION OF TERRITORY

THE word administration is used in several different senses and with different applications. In politics it usually designates the executive as opposed to the legislative and judicial departments of the government; but as a practical matter every executive department exercises to some extent legislative and judicial functions. The President of the United States, the Prime Minister of England, and the Premier of France are the heads of the executive departments of the respective governments and exercise both a rulemaking and a discretionary power. In the United States the members of the Cabinet as heads of their respective departments are administrative officers. They also have rule-making and discretionary power. Most of their subordinates, the chiefs of divisions and their staffs, have no such power, and although members of the administrative department, exercise only ministerial functions. They merely carry out instructions.

All executives or administrators acquire their power and functions by delegation from a higher power. In the United States the delegation is made by the people themselves; in an absolute monarchy by the personal sovereign. The duties that are delegated are of a managerial character, limited usually by the constitution or other fundamental law. Yet it is possible that an active and tactful administrator may in fact acquire nearly the whole control of a government while adhering in form to a restricted sphere. He is less apt to extend his activities unduly if he is not elected or appointed for a definite period, but is a responsible minister as is the Prime Minister of England. At any moment, through a general election, his power may be taken from him.

If the above is the political meaning of administration in relation

to a state, what is meant by international administration of territory? Logically and by analogy it should mean the executive department of a form of government set up by several states to govern either part or the whole of their own territory or at least some territory. Now sovereign states do not willingly consent to put their own territory under the management of other states, and so we may expect to find no examples of free and full consent to it. But we may find examples of territory whose inhabitants have to submit to management and practical control exercised by states which do not have title to that territory. It is in this sense that Article 22 of the League Covenant provides for international administration. By the Treaty of Peace with Germany (Art. 118), it is provided that "in territory outside her European frontiers as fixed by the present treaty, Germany renounces all rights, titles, and privileges whatever in or over territory which belonged to her or to her allies, and all rights, titles, and privileges, whatever their origin, which she held as against the Allied and Associated Powers." Thus Germany is divested of sovereignty over all lands outside her boundaries as set by the treaty. As to much of this territory in Europe, the new location of the sovereignty is definitely fixed by other parts of the treaty. But the disposition of the German colonies as provided in Article 119 raises an interesting question. "Germany renounces," it says, "in favor of the principal Allied and Associated Powers all her rights and titles over her overseas possessions." The principal Allied and Associated Powers are the United States of America, the British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan, and the title to Germany's former colonial possessions goes to them jointly and not to any one of them singly. This has created a curious international situation in which the sovereignty of extensive territory apparently is jointly held, while the inhabitants of these territories, unless they elect to remain Germans, are deprived of nationality. They do not automatically become Americans, or Englishmen, or Frenchmen, or Italians, or Japanese, nor are they citizens of a collective state. No such state exists. Nor are 'The italics are the author's.

Ibid.

they by virtue of the transfer under the control of a government. But a government there must be, and until or unless these colonies are made independent that government is provided for by the League Covenant. The process apparently is (1) a delegation of administration by the five Powers to the League, (2) a further delegation of actual functions to single powers to act in the name of the League. Provision for this latter step is made by Article 22 of the Covenant, in which the method is justified on the ground that the former German colonies are not yet able to govern themselves and that the well-being and development of them is a sacred trust of civilization the performance of which should be guaranteed by the League. "The best method of giving practical effect to this principle," says the Article, "is that the tutelage of such peoples should be entrusted to advanced nations who by reason of their resources, their experience, or their geographical position, can best undertake this responsibility, and who are willing to accept it, and that this tutelage should be exercised by them as Mandatories on behalf of the League." The word mandatory calls for explanation which has been given by Professor Munroe Smith (New York Times, February 9, 1919). It does not indicate a state to which a command is given, but in the Roman private law sense, one to which a commission is given to act as agent. Much of the terminology of international law comes from Roman law through the medium of continental writers. Thus it comes that to act as Mandatory on behalf of the League, means to accept a commission or authorization (i. e., mandate) to serve as agent (i. e., Mandatory) for the League. There is no suggestion in the word of power to command a state to accept such a commission, and this would have been clear without the insertion of the phrase "and who are willing to accept it." On the other hand, the mandatory system'gives the people noright to select or be consulted in the selection of the Mandatory in whose tutelage they are to be placed. Such consultation is an act of grace and not of right. The Covenant, however, indicates the character of the mandates to be issued and the method of issuing them. They will differ, it says, "according to the stage of the development of the people,