PART II THE OBJECTS OF THE LAW OFNATIONS
CHAPTER I STATE TERRITORY
I ON STATE TERRITORY IN GENERAL
Vattel, II. §§ 79-83—Hall, § 30—Westlake, I. pp. 84-88—Lawrence, §§ 71-72—Phillimore, I. §§ 150-154—Twiss, I. §§ 140-144—Halleck, I. pp. 150-156—Taylor, § 217—Wheaton, §§ 161-163—Moore, I. § 125—Bluntschli, § 277—Hartmann, § 58—Holtzendorff in Holtzendorff, II. pp. 225-232—Gareis, § 18—Liszt, § 9—Ullmann, § 86—Heffter, §§ 65-68—Bonfils, No. 483—Despagnet, Nos. 374-377—Pradier-Fodéré, II. No. 612—Mérignhac, II. pp. 356-366—Nys, I. pp. 402-412—Rivier, I. pp. 135-142—Calvo, I. §§ 260-262—Fiore, I. Nos. 522-530—Martens, I. § 88—Del Bon, "Proprietà territoriale degli Stati" (1867)—Fricker, "Vom Staatsgebiet" (1867).
Conception of State Territory.
§ 168. State territory is that definite portion of the surface of the globe which is subjected to the sovereignty of the State. A State without a territory is not possible, although the necessary territory may be very small, as in the case of the Free Town of Hamburg, the Principality of Monaco, the Republic of San Marino, or the Principality of Lichtenstein. A wandering tribe, although it has a Government and is otherwise organised, is not a State before it has settled down on a territory of its own.
State territory is also named territorial property of a State. Yet it must be borne in mind that territorial property is a term of Public Law and must not be confounded with private property. The territory of a State is not the property of the monarch, or of the Government, or even of the people of a State; it is the country which is subjected to the territorial supremacy or the imperium of a State. This distinction has, however, in former centuries not been sharply drawn.[270] In spite of the dictum of Seneca, "Omnia rex imperio possidet, singuli dominio," the imperium of the monarch and the State over the State territory has very often been identified with private property of the monarch or the State. But with the disappearance of absolutism this identification has likewise disappeared. It is for this reason that nowadays, according to the Constitutional Law of most countries, neither the monarch nor the Government is able to dispose of parts of the State territory at will and without the consent of Parliament.[271]
[270] And some writers refuse to draw it even nowadays, as, for instance, Lawrence, § 71.
[271] In English Constitutional Law this point is not settled. The cession of the Island of Heligoland to Germany in 1890 was, however, made conditional on the approval of Parliament.