If, from the point of view of international law, it is indisputable that no state, civilised or not, has the right to arbitrarily trouble the chiefs of savage tribes in the possession of their sovereignty, the same prohibition applies to those to whom they have conceded, whoever they may be.
The cessionnaires have the same rights as the ceders. Under what pretext could another state trouble them? Their cession is valid, and thus all motive, or even all pretext for trouble is wanting; or, the cession is null, according to the law of nations, and then the sovereign who made the cession has, in right, preserved all his sovereignty, and no other state has the right to trouble it, or even to intervene to make good the nullity of the cession.
II
Let us take the second question. Can a cession be made to a private citizen?
We are happy to be able to abridge this part of our work by referring to the article, “The Free Navigation of the Congo,” published by our eminent colleague of the Institute, Sir Travers Twiss, in the sixth number of the Revue du droit international for 1883.
It is true that Sir Travers Twiss occupies himself with the question whether those associations which are not organised as States can exercise sovereign rights, rather than whether these rights of sovereignty can be conceded to private individuals; but the argument which he invokes in support of his thesis applies in great part to cessions made to individuals.
When writers establish their point of departure to arrive at a demonstration they commence often by saying:
“It is an established principle,” etc. Or, “It is a principle of law,” etc. And they employ this form when their principles are the most contestable. In the article we have just cited, Sir Travers Twiss mentions an article in the Revue de géographie of Paris,[79] in which Mr. Delavand says: “It is a principle of law that states alone can exercise sovereign rights, and that no private company can have them.” He (Sir Travers Twiss) adds, with reason, that this proposition is affirmed in too absolute a manner, and he proves conclusively by historical facts that his criticism is just.
Doubtless an individual, as such, and a private society, in that capacity, are not sovereigns, and exercise no act of sovereignty. This needs no demonstration. But, in virtue of what principle of international law is it sought to be shown that one who is a private citizen to-day cannot become a sovereign to-morrow, and be in possession of the plenitude of sovereignty? Such a principle does not exist. No author of international law has ever sustained it, and all the history of humanity, from the earliest down to modern times, denies it.
Individuals can become sovereigns, and exercise the rights of sovereigns, in two ways: