dissension, and the extent to which they are capable of

expressing the popular will, to mention only more obvious It may not be practicable or aesirable

differences.

for the law of nations to take account of such inequalities. It may be better for the law to disregard indirect limitations on capacity. However that may be, they exist, and they are bound to influence the law in one way or another, whether treated as of legal significance or regarded merely as matters of fact.

III

INTERNAL LIMITATIONS ON CAPACITY FOR TRANSACTIONS

There are other internal limitations which go to the very root of an international person's capacity for transactions. They constitute positive restrictions upon that equality of legal capacity which is presumed to exist among the members of international society. Examples may be given of this type of limitation which affect the state's capacity to make certain treaties, to make war in certain circumstances, and to extradite certain classes of offenders. Organic incapacities relating to the treaty power may

be divided for convenience into two groups; first, those designed to protect the essential bases of state existence; and second, those intended to secure certain interests of a less fundamental character.

Limitations of the first

group appear more frequently in the fundamental laws, and

are created to protect the territory, independence, government, or citizens of the state concerned. In a number of

58

states there is no legal way, short of an organic amendment, by which the national territory can be alienated. A great deal of national sentiment is expressed in the first article of Turkey's Constitution:

The Ottoman Empire comprises the existing territories and divisions and the privileged provinces. forms an indivisible whole, and can never allow any part to be detached for any reason whatever.

59

A similar limitation in Salvador is aimed expressly at the

treaty-making power:

It

None of the constituted powers shall have authority to conclude or approve treaties or conventions by which the form of government herein provided for be in any way altered, or by which the integrity of the territory or the national sovereignty be abridged; this to be understood without prejudice to the provisions of Art. 151 of the present Constitution.60

The Venezuelan Constitution provides:

The territory of the nation cannot be alienated nor leased, nor ceded in any way to a foreign Power.61

58 Bulgaria, Art. 1, 2, 141 (Constituent Assembly by majority vote); Cuba, App.; Dominican Republic, Art. 3; Luxemburg, Art. 1 (Cf. Art. 37); Norway, Art. 1; Roumania, Art. 2; Salvador, Art. 38; Servia, Art. 4; Sweden, Art. 78; Turkey, Art. 1 (Cf. Art. 7); Venezuela, Art. 11. The provision in the Cuban Constitution is the consequence of Cuba's peculiar relation to the United States. in form an internal limitation, it is in fact an external limitation, and will be considered presently as such.

Although

59 Art. 1 (transl. from B.F.S.P.). Cf. Art. 7 as revised in 1909.

60 Art. 38 (Rodriguez' transl.). Art. 151 refers to the formation of a Central American union, or a great Latin American confederation.

61 Art. 11 (transl. from B.F.S.P.).