[244] See Westlake, I. p. 252; Taylor, § 192; Calvo, VI. §§ 171-173; Moore, II. § 201, and "Report on Extraterritorial Crime and the Cutting Case" (1887); Rolin in R.I. XX. (1888), pp. 559-577. The case is fully discussed and the American claim is disputed by Mendelssohn Bartholdy, "Das räumliche Herrschaftsgebiet des Strafgesetzes" (1908), pp. 135-143.
CHAPTER III RESPONSIBILITY OF STATES
I ON STATE RESPONSIBILITY IN GENERAL
Grotius, II. c. 21, § 2—Pufendorf, VIII. c. 6, § 12—Vattel, II. §§ 63-78—Hall, § 65—Halleck, I. pp. 440-444—Wharton, I. § 21—Moore, VI. §§ 979-1039—Wheaton, § 32—Bluntschli, § 74—Heffter, §§ 101-104—Holtzendorff in Holtzendorff, II. pp. 70-74—Liszt, § 24—Ullmann, § 39—Bonfils, Nos. 324-332—Despagnet, No. 466—Piedelièvre, I. pp. 317-322—Pradier-Fodéré, I. Nos. 196-210—Rivier, I. pp. 40-44—Calvo, III. §§ 1261-1298—Fiore, I. Nos. 659-679, and Code, Nos. 591-610—Martens, I. § 118—Clunet, "Offenses et actes hostiles commis par particuliers contre un état étranger" (1887)—Triepel, "Völkerrecht und Landesrecht" (1899), pp. 324-381—Anzillotti, "Teoria generale della responsabilità dello stato nel diritto internazionale" (1902)—Wiese, "Le droit international appliqué aux guerres civiles" (1898), pp. 43-65—Rougier, "Les guerres civiles et le droit des gens" (1903), pp. 448-474—Baty, "International Law" (1908), pp. 91-242—Anzillotti in R.G. XIII. (1906), pp. 5-29 and 285-309—Foster in A.J. I. (1907), pp. 5-10—Bar in R.I. 2nd Ser. I. (1899), pp. 464-481.
Nature of State Responsibility.
§ 148. It is often maintained that a State, as a sovereign person, can have no legal responsibility whatever. This is only correct with reference to certain acts of a State towards its subjects. Since a State can abolish parts of its Municipal Law and can make new Municipal Law, it can always avoid legal, although not moral, responsibility by a change of Municipal Law. Different from this internal autocracy is the external responsibility of a State to fulfil its international legal duties. Responsibility for such duties is, as will be remembered,[245] a quality of every State as an International Person, without which the Family of Nations could not peaceably exist. Although there is no International Court of Justice which could establish such responsibility and pronounce a fine or other punishment against a State for neglect of its international duties, State responsibility concerning international duties is nevertheless a legal responsibility. For a State cannot abolish or create new International Law in the same way as it can abolish or create new Municipal Law. A State, therefore, cannot renounce its international duties unilaterally[246] at discretion, but is and remains legally bound by them. And although there is not and never will be a central authority above the single States to enforce the fulfilment of these duties, there is the legalised self-help of the single States against one another. For every neglect of an international legal duty constitutes an international delinquency,[247] and the violated State can through reprisals or even war compel the delinquent State to comply with its international duties. It is only theorists who deny the possibility of a legal responsibility of States, the practice of the States themselves recognises it distinctly, although there may in a special case be controversy as to whether a responsibility is to be borne. And State responsibility is now in a general way recognised for the time of war by article 3 of the Hague Convention of 1907, concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, which stipulates: "A belligerent party which violates the provisions of the said Regulations shall, if the case demands, be liable to make compensation. It shall be responsible for all acts committed by persons forming part of its armed forces."
[246] See Annex to Protocol I. of Conference of London, 1871, where the Signatory Powers proclaim that "it is an essential principle of the Law of Nations that no Power can liberate itself from the engagements of a treaty, or modify the stipulations thereof, unless with the consent of the contracting Powers by means of an amicable arrangement."
Original and Vicarious State Responsibility.