Form of cession.
§ 216. The only form in which a cession can be effected is an agreement embodied in a treaty between the ceding and the acquiring State. Such treaty may be the outcome of peaceable negotiations or of war, and the cession may be one with or without compensation.
If a cession of territory is the outcome of war, it is the treaty of peace which stipulates the cession among its other provisions. Such cession is regularly one without compensation, although certain duties may be imposed upon the acquiring State, as, for instance, of taking over a part of the debts of the ceding State corresponding to the extent and importance of the ceded territory, or that of giving the individuals domiciled on the ceded territory the option to retain their old citizenship or, at least, to emigrate.
Cessions which are the outcome of peaceable negotiations may be agreed upon by the interested States from different motives and for different purposes. Thus Austria, during war with Prussia and Italy in 1866, ceded Venice to France as a gift, and some weeks afterwards France on her part ceded Venice to Italy. The Duchy of Courland ceded in 1795 its whole territory to and voluntarily merged thereby in Russia, in the same way the then Free Town of Mulhouse merged in France in 1798, the Congo Free State in Belgium in 1908, and the Empire of Korea in Japan in 1911.
Cessions have in the past often been effected by transactions which are analogous to transactions in private business life. As long as absolutism was reigning over Europe, it was not at all rare for territory to be ceded in marriage contracts or by testamentary dispositions.[414] In the interest of frontier regulations, but also for other purposes, exchanges of territory frequently take place. Sale of territory is quite usual; as late as 1868 Russia sold her territory in America to the United States for 7,200,000 dollars, and in 1899 Spain sold the Caroline Islands to Germany for 25,000,000 pesetas. Pledge and lease are also made use of. Thus, the then Republic of Genoa pledged Corsica to France in 1768, Sweden pledged Wismar to Mecklenburg in 1803; China[415] leased in 1898 Kiaochau to Germany,[416] Wei-Hai-Wei and the land opposite the island of Hong Kong to Great Britain,[417] and Port Arthur to Russia.
[414] Phillimore, I. §§ 274-276, enumerates many examples of such cession. The question whether the monarch of a State under absolute government could nowadays by a testamentary disposition cede territory to another State must, I believe, be answered in the affirmative.
[415] See above, § [171, No. 3]. Cession may also take place under the disguise of an agreement according to which territory comes under the "administration" or under the "use, occupation, and control" of a foreign State. See above, § [171, Nos. 2] and [4].
[416] See Martens, N.R.G. 2nd Ser. XXX. (1904), p. 326.
[417] See Martens, N.R.G. 2nd Ser. XXXII. (1905), pp. 89 and 90.
Whatever may be the motive and the purpose of the transaction, and whatever may be the compensation, if any, for the cession, the ceded territory is transferred to the new sovereign with all the international obligations[418] locally connected with the territory (Res transit cum suo onere, and Nemo plus juris transferre potest, quam ipse habet).