§ 291. If, as stated, individuals are never subjects but always objects of the Law of Nations, then nationality is the link between this law and individuals. It is through the medium of their nationality only that individuals can enjoy benefits from the existence of the Law of Nations. This is a fact which has its consequences over the whole area of International Law.[603] Such individuals as do not possess any nationality enjoy no protection whatever, and if they are aggrieved by a State they have no way of redress, there being no State which would be competent to take their case in hand. As far as the Law of Nations is concerned, apart from morality, there is no restriction whatever to cause a State to abstain from maltreating to any extent such stateless individuals.[604] On the other hand, if individuals who possess nationality are wronged abroad, it is their home State only and exclusively which has a right to ask for redress, and these individuals themselves have no such right. It is for this reason that the question of nationality is a very important one for the Law of Nations, and that individuals enjoy benefits from this law not as human beings but as subjects of such States as are members of the Family of Nations. And so distinct is the position as subjects of these members from the position of stateless individuals and from subjects of States outside the Family of Nations, that it has been correctly characterised as a kind of international "indigenousness," a Völkerrechts-Indigenat.[605] Just as municipal citizenship procures for an individual the enjoyment of the benefits of the Municipal Laws, so this international "indigenousness," which is a necessary inference from municipal citizenship, procures the enjoyment of the benefits of the Law of Nations.
[605] See Stoerk in Holtzendorff, II. p. 588.
The Law of Nations and the Rights of Mankind.
§ 292. Several writers[606] maintain that the Law of Nations guarantees to every individual at home and abroad the so-called rights of mankind, without regarding whether an individual be stateless or not, or whether he be a subject of a member-State of the Family of Nations or not. Such rights are said to comprise the right of existence, the right to protection of honour, life, health, liberty, and property, the right of practising any religion one likes, the right of emigration, and the like. But such rights do not in fact enjoy any guarantee whatever from the Law of Nations,[607] and they cannot enjoy such guarantee, since the Law of Nations is a law between States, and since individuals cannot be subjects of this law. But there are certain facts which cannot be denied at the background of this erroneous opinion. The Law of Nations is a product of Christian civilisation and represents a legal order which binds States, chiefly Christian, into a community. It is therefore no wonder that ethical ideas which are some of them the basis of, others a development from, Christian morals, have a tendency to require the help of International Law for their realisation. When the Powers stipulated at the Berlin Congress of 1878 that the Balkan States should be recognised only under the condition that they did not impose any religious disabilities on their subjects, they lent their arm to the realisation of such an idea. Again, when the Powers after the beginning of the nineteenth century agreed to several international arrangements in the interest of the abolition of the slave trade,[608] they fostered the realisation of another of these ideas. And the innumerable treaties between the different States as regards extradition of criminals, commerce, navigation, copyright, and the like, are inspired by the idea of affording ample protection to life, health, and property of individuals. Lastly, there is no doubt that, should a State venture to treat its own subjects or a part thereof with such cruelty as would stagger humanity, public opinion of the rest of the world would call upon the Powers to exercise intervention[609] for the purpose of compelling such State to establish a legal order of things within its boundaries sufficient to guarantee to its citizens an existence more adequate to the ideas of modern civilisation. However, a guarantee of the so-called rights of mankind cannot be found in all these and other facts. Nor do the actual conditions of life to which certain classes of subjects are forcibly submitted within certain States show that the Law of Nations really comprises such guarantee.[610]
[606] Bluntschli, §§ [360]-363 and 370; Martens, I. §§ 85 and 86; Fiore, I. Nos. 684-712, and Code, Nos. 614-669; Bonfils, No. 397, and others.
[607] The matter is treated with great lucidity by Heilborn, "System," pp. 83-138.
[608] It is incorrect to maintain that the Law of Nations has abolished slavery, but there is no doubt that the conventional Law of Nations has tried to abolish the slave trade. Three important general treaties have been concluded for that purpose during the nineteenth century, since the Vienna Congress—namely, (1) the Treaty of London, 1841, between Great Britain, Austria, France, Prussia, and Russia; (2) the General Act of the Congo Conference of Berlin, 1885, whose article 9 deals with the slave trade; (3) the General Act of the anti-slavery Conference of Brussels, 1890, which is signed by Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, the Congo Free State, Denmark, France, (see, however, below, § [517]), Germany, Holland, Italy, Luxemburg, Persia, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Norway, the United States, Turkey, and Zanzibar. See Queneuil, "De la traite des noirs et de l'esclavage" (1907).