city, added a clause to the identical treaty of November 20, 1815, in which the Swiss-Savoyard neutrality was further expanded to comprise southerly upper Savoy, that is to say, the three ancient districts of Chablais, Faucigny, and Genevois, now the arrondissements of Thonon, Bonneville, and St.-Julien, all became clothed with the neutral quality, thus interposing a neutral zone between Switzerland and any neighbor on the south and east of Geneva and the lake. The precaution had been taken in the memorial of March 29, 1815, to stipulate that whenever states adjoining the Swiss borders should find themselves in a condition of imminent or open hostility, any Sardinian troops then in these neutralized districts should be allowed to retire along the Simplon road to Italy through Canton Valais, nor should any armed troops of any Power be allowed to occupy or traverse the neutral territory without Swiss permission. The Swiss Government, then, and no other may rightfully garrison this Savoy country in time of warfare. Switzerland's military frontier on the Savoy side is thus practically extended by treaty and international guarantee to the line of the high Alps.

Switzerland, then, along the borders of Canton Geneva and the easterly line of the lake finds itself encircled by foreign territory whose customs frontiers have been removed to an extent sufficient to allow international reciprocity with an extensive stretch of country. The portion of this country comprised in the district of Gex on the north of the lake, while tariff-free, is not neutralized, but the tariff-free zones of the Savoyard country, together with the still wider area to the south of the tariff-free zones, are included in the shelter of Swiss neutralization. It should be added that precise details touching the practical maintenance and execution of the reciprocity thus divided are regulated by a treaty made with France in 1881 and by a federal ordinance of the Swiss Government passed in 1908, to which is attached an official map indicating the tariff-free zones.

We should note, also, that the question has long been mooted as to the true character, in the light of international law, of the responsibility undertaken by the Allies at Vienna and at the Second Peace of Paris with respect to a protecting rôle touching the Swiss commonwealth which they undoubtedly assumed on both occasions and which

at the Second Peace of Paris, as has been already indicated, was given definite form in the celebrated declaration signed by Austria, France, Great Britain, Portugal, Prussia, and Russia. Eminent authorities have sharply differed touching the existence of an actual guarantee of Swiss and Savoyard neutrality, since the declaration undertakes to recognize Swiss perpetual neutrality, but guarantees the integrity and the inviolability only of its territory. There would appear, nevertheless, to be no doubt whatever as to the intention of the Powers at the Vienna Congress: it is expressly stated in the declaration of March 20, 1815, that an Act shall be drawn up recognizing and guaranteeing on the part of all the Powers Swiss perpetual neutrality; in the Sardinian memorial of March 26th Saint-Marsan asks for an extension of Swiss neutrality over Savoy as guaranteed by the Powers; in Article 92 of the Vienna Final Act this stipulation of the memorial takes shape in a clause stating that certain portions of upper Savoy shall be comprised within Swiss neutrality as recognized and guaranteed by the Powers; the protocol of November 3, 1815, declares also, when widening the sphere of Swiss neutrality in Savoy, that such widening shall extend the neutrality in the same manner as provided by Article 92 of the Vienna Final Act; and this provision was ratified by the Sardinian Government in its acte de remise of December 15, 1815; while in Article VII of the Sardinian treaty of March 16, 1816, which recapitulated the various provisions touching the extension of Swiss neutrality over Savoy, the terms "recognize" and "guarantee" are carefully quoted from the Second Peace of Paris in explanation of Savoy's claim to neutralization.

There would appear, indeed, no doubt that it was an express guarantee which was both contemplated and actually declared at Vienna. This was required by the circumstances amid which the various transactions above enumerated were brought to a successful diplomatic conclusion.

Whether, in fact, we regard Swiss neutrality as a measure in its origin adopted as a refuge from the perils of attack from surrounding and powerful neighbors, or as a policy in part urged upon the country from without in order to secure to possible belligerents the advantages. of what might be termed a safety-zone, all will admit that it has con

sistently served to develop a conception of devotion to country and also to expand civil freedom at home unstained by ambition of conquest abroad. Handed down, as it has been, through the centuries and protected in a later time by such safeguards as solemnly executed treaties and the principles of international law may throw about it, Swiss permanent neutrality may well be looked upon as a by no means insignificant element in the structure of modern world-civilization, while its preservation is essential as a bright example to the progress and perpetuation of that civilization itself.

There remains for consideration the maintenance by Switzerland of its neutrality during the European war, together with, in conclusion, the general aspects of permanent neutrality as attempted to be developed or preserved elsewhere.

GORDON E. SHERMAN.

CHANGE OF SOVEREIGNTY AND PRIVATE OWNERSHIP

OF LAND

I. THEORIES AND METHOD OF TREATMENT

PERHAPS no part of international law gives rise to more uncertainty and disagreement than the law which determines the resulting rights and duties of states and individuals upon a change of sovereignty, the so-called law of succession. One group of writers holds that the new sovereign succeeds to all the rights and obligations of the former sovereign with respect to the territory ceded. The new sovereign, it is said, like the Roman heir, is "universal successor" to the obligations as well as to the rights of the former sovereign. Grotius suggests the analogy of the Roman heir when he says: "Heredis personam, quoad dominii tam publici quam privati continuationem, pro eadem censeri cum defuncti persona, certi est juris" (Book II, Chap. IX, sec. 12). Again, he says: "Potest imperium victoria acquiri, ut est in rege alio imperante, et tunc in ejus jus succeditur" (Book III, Chap. VIII, sec. 2). This analogy, suggested by Grotius when international law was in the making, has had a remarkably strong influence upon the development of the rules of international law governing a change of sovereignty. Many writers of authority, following in the footsteps of Grotius, have laid it down that the new sovereign succeeds to all the obligations as well as to the rights of the former sovereign.1

1 Halleck in his International Law (4th ed.), Vol. II, Chap. 34, sec. 27, p. 530, says: "Complete conquest, by whatever mode it may be perfected, carries with it all the rights of the former government; or, in other words, the conqueror by the completion of his conquest, becomes, as it were, the heir and universal successor of the defunct or extinguished state." Hall in his International Law (5th ed.), p. 99, says: "When a state ceases to exist by absorption in another state, the latter in the same way is the inheritor of all local rights, obligations, and property." Speaking of the case of a territory which has won its independence, he says (p. 92): "Rights possessed in respect of the lost territory, including obligations contracted with

Other writers, however, adopting the opposite extreme, declare that the new sovereign succeeds to none of the obligations resting, upon the former sovereign. For instance, Keith, who made an exhaustive examination of the subject of succession as laid down in treaties, by text-writers, and in current practice, says:

It is submitted that cession, in itself, creates only a singular succession, that is a succession to rights and not to liabilities. . . . In any case in which the terms of the contract are not explicit the principle on which the question should be judged is that of a succession to rights and not to liabilities. Such a succession is really merely a substitution without any continuity. . . . It is submitted that the true doctrine of international law with regard to the annexation of states is that the annexing Power seizes all the rights in the country and its material resources, but it does not succeed to the obligations of the conquered government nor to such rights as were personal to that government.2

Between these two extremes of succession to all obligations, and succession to no obligations, there are adherents of almost every conceivable theory. But if the theorists and text-writers are irreconcilable in the various and diverse shades of opinion expressed, the practices of states are if possible even more so.

The subject of succession covers such widely differing phases, and these are dependent upon such diverse considerations and principles,

reference to it alone, and property which is within it, and has therefore a local character, transfer themselves to the new state person." To the same effect Rivier in his Principes du Droit des Gens, Vol. I, p. 70, says: Le successeur continue la personalité économique et fiscale de l'État supprimé, avec ses avantages et ses charges, spécialement avec celle de la dette publique, en conformité des règles connues: Bona non intelliguntur nisi deducto aere alieno' et 'Res transit cum suo onere.' F. de Martens in his Traité de Droit International (translation by Leo), Vol. I, sec. 67, p. 368, says: "Les conséquences juridiques de l'absorption d'un État par un autre État rappellent les relations qui naissent entre particuliers à l'occasion de l'ouverture d'une succession. L'État qui s'est annexé le territoire d'un autre pays prend la place du, défunt' et lui succède complètement comme personne juridique. Il hérite de ses droits et de ses obligations." To the same effect are Despagnet, Droit International Public, No. 90; Bluntschli, Droit International, sec. 54; Heffter, Le Droit International, sec. 25, and many others.

2 Keith, Theory of State Succession, pp. 5, 6. Compare Appleton, Des effets des annexions de territoires; Gabba, Questioni di diritto civile; and Gidel, Des effets de l'annexion sur les concessions.