§ 214. Since cession is a bilateral transaction, it has two subjects—namely, the ceding and the acquiring State. Both subjects must be States, and only those cessions in which both subjects are States concern the Law of Nations. Cessions of territory made to private persons and to corporations[408] by native tribes or by States outside the dominion of the Law of Nations do not fall within the sphere of International Law, neither do cessions of territory by native tribes made to States[409] which are members of the Family of Nations. On the other hand, cession of territory made to a member of the Family of Nations by a State as yet outside that family is real cession and a concern of the Law of Nations, since such State becomes through the treaty of cession in some respects a member of that family.[410]
[408] See above, § [209, No. 2].
[409] See below, §§ [221] and [222].
Object of cession.
§ 215. The object of cession is sovereignty over such territory as has hitherto already belonged to another State. As far as the Law of Nations is concerned, every State as a rule can cede a part of its territory to another State, or by ceding the whole of its territory can even totally merge in another State. However, since certain parts of State territory, as for instance rivers and the maritime belt, are inalienable appurtenances of the land, they cannot be ceded without a piece of land.[411]
[411] See above, §§ [175] and [185].
The controverted question whether permanently neutralised parts of a not permanently neutralised State can be ceded to another State must be answered in the affirmative,[412] although the Powers certainly can exercise an intervention by right. On the other hand, a permanently neutralised State could not, except in the case of mere frontier regulation, cede a part of its neutralised territory to another State without the consent of the Powers.[413] Nor could a State under suzerainty or protectorate cede a part or the whole of its territory to a third State without the consent of the superior State. Thus, the Ionian Islands could not in 1863 have merged in Greece without the consent of Great Britain, which exercised a protectorate over these islands.
[412] Thus in 1860 Sardinia ceded her neutralised provinces of Chablais and Faucigny to France. See above, §207.