§ 234. The same and other natural processes which create alluvions on the shore and banks, and Deltas at the mouths of rivers, lead to the birth of new islands. If they rise on the High Seas outside the territorial maritime belt, they are no State's land, and may be acquired through occupation on the part of any State. But if they rise in rivers, lakes, and within the maritime belt, they are, according to the Law of Nations, considered accretions to the neighbouring land. It is for this reason that such new islands in boundary rivers as rise within the boundary line of one of the riparian States accrue to the land of such State, and that, on the other hand, such islands as rise upon the boundary line are divided into parts by it, the respective parts accruing to the land of the riparian States concerned. If an island rises within the territorial maritime belt, it accrues to the land of the littoral State, and the extent of the maritime belt is now to be measured from the shore of the new-born island.
An illustrative example is the case[453] of the Anna. In 1805, during war between Great Britain and Spain, the British privateer Minerva captured the Spanish vessel Anna near the mouth of the River Mississippi. When brought before the British Prize Court, the United States claimed the captured vessel on the ground that she was captured within the American territorial maritime belt. Lord Stowell gave judgment in favour of this claim, because, although it appeared that the capture did actually take place more than three miles off the coast of the continent, the place of capture was within three miles of some small mud-islands composed of earth and trees drifted down into the sea.
[453] See 5 C. Rob. 373.
Abandoned Riverbeds.
§ 235. It happens sometimes that a river abandons its bed entirely or dries up altogether. If such river was a boundary river, the abandoned bed is now the natural boundary. But often the old boundary line cannot be ascertained, and in such cases the boundary line is considered to run through the middle of the abandoned bed, and the portions ipso facto accrue to the land of the riparian States, although the territory of one of these States may become thereby enlarged, and that of the other diminished.
XV SUBJUGATION
Vattel, III. §§ 199-203—Hall, §§ 204-205—Lawrence, § 77—Halleck, II. pp. 467-498—Taylor, § 220—Walker, § 11—Wheaton, § 165—Moore, I. § 87—Bluntschli, §§ 287-289, 701-702—Heffter, § 178—Liszt, § 10—Ullmann, §§ 92 and 97—Bonfils, No. 535—Despagnet, Nos. 387-390—Rivier, I. pp. 181-182, II. 436-441—Nys, II. pp. 40-46—Calvo, V. §§ 3117, 3118—Fiore, II. No. 863, III. No. 1693, and Code, Nos. 1078-1081—Martens, I. § 91—Holtzendorff, "Eroberung und Eroberungsrecht" (1871)—Heimburger, "Der Erwerb der Gebietshoheit" (1888), pp. 121-132—Westlake in The Law Quarterly Review, XVII. (1901), p. 392.
Conception of Conquest and of Subjugation.
§ 236. Conquest is the taking possession of enemy territory through military force in time of war. Conquest alone does not ipso facto make the conquering State the sovereign of the conquered territory, although such territory comes through conquest for the time under the sway of the conqueror. Conquest is only a mode of acquisition if the conqueror, after having firmly established the conquest, formally annexed the territory. Such annexation makes the enemy State cease to exist and thereby brings the war to an end. And as such ending of war is named subjugation, it is conquest followed by subjugation, and not conquest alone, which gives a title and is a mode of acquiring territory.[454] It is, however, quite usual to speak of conquest as a title, and everybody knows that subjugation after conquest is thereby meant. But it must be specially mentioned that, if a belligerent conquers a part of the enemy territory and makes afterwards the vanquished State cede the conquered territory in the treaty of peace, the mode of acquisition is not subjugation but cession.[455]
[454] Concerning the distinction between conquest and subjugation, see below, [vol. II. § 264].