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conventions of the United States give expression to the esteem and dignity attached by the contracting parties to the consular office. The appeal of the American consular service to persons of the type most desired therein will be strengthened by the zeal with which the United States obtains and acknowledges fresh recognition in new treaties, of the importance of the consular function, as well as of the treatment to be accorded him who is empowered to exercise it. CHARLES CHENEY HYDE.

NATIONALITY AND THE NINETEENTH AMENDMENT

The Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in accord with which the right to vote shall not be abridged on account of sex has been adopted. This action has given rise to the question as to whether other legal restraints, based on sex, should not also be removed to the end that women should have "complete juridical emancipation.”

Among the limitations particularly affecting international relations are those in regard to the acquisition and determination of nationality. Practice in this matter has varied and still varies in different states, and has varied at different periods in the same state; but, in general, nationality has tended to follow the male. There have been exceptions, but these have in recent years become less

common.

A national is a person owing allegiance to and entitled to the protection of a state. The change of conditions resulting from transfer of nationality may, therefore, be a matter of much significance. The tendency has been toward the adoption of the rule that the wife takes the nationality of her husband. The United States has been favorable to this rule when applied to alien women marrying nationals of the United States. Till 1907 the United States seemed reluctant to accept the converse of this doctrine, that an American woman marrying an alien lost her American nationality, but the United States did admit "that a woman's marriage with a foreigner should be regarded as an act of expatriation, at least when accompanied with residence abroad" (Pequignot v. Detroit, 16 F. R. 211).

In 1907 it was declared by act of Congress "that any American woman who marries a foreigner shall take the nationality of her husband" (U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1909, 438). While the Congress of the United States may be competent to declare that a national expatriates himself or herself, it is open to question whether such an enactment would confer any other nationality on the expatriated party. Indeed the United States would deny this competence to certain states and has enacted that only a woman "who might herself be lawfully naturalized shall be deemed a citizen" upon marrying a citizen of the United States. The French law is more considerate and prescribes that "a Frenchwoman who marries an alien follows the nationality of her husband unless her marriage does not confer upon her the nationality of her husband, in which case she remains French" (I Dalloz, Codes Annotés, Art. 19, p. 217).

While, by naturalization in the United States, an alien man may obtain American nationality for his wife and children, it was decided in 1910 that "an alien wife of an alien man, both having resided in this country as husband and wife for over thirty years" may not in her own right legally be naturalized (U. S. v. Cohen, 179 F. R. 834). This decision accords with British law, which does not allow naturalization "to any person under disability," and "disability” includes "the status of being a married woman.

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Other states as well as the United States discriminate against women in the acquisition of nationality, some of these on the ground of the requirements of military service, some on the ground of confusion of relationships, etc.

The old English principle that allegiance could not be put off by a national was set aside by the Naturalization Act of 1870, and in the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act of 1914, which reserves to the woman considerable right over herself when her husband changes nationality. While this late Act provides that "the wife of a British subject shall be deemed to be a British subject, and the wife of an alien shall be deemed alien," it also provides that if "a man ceases during the continuance of his marriage to be a British subject, it shall be lawful for his wife to make a declaration that she desires to retain British nationality, and thereupon she shall be deemed to remain a British subject."

The valuable contribution of Dr. Zeballos entitled La Nationalité, in its exhaustive treatment shows the range of conflict of laws upon the subject of acquisition of nationality.

The recent war has made evident the importance of clear understanding as to who are nationals and therefore owe allegiance to and are entitled to the protection of a state. Many questions in regard to inheritance and taxation become complicated through conflict of laws in regard to nationality. The extension of the franchise to women has particularly raised the query as to whether other rights which are supposed to go with full citizenship, e.g., the right of a wife to be naturalized regardless of the nationality of her husband, should not follow the right to vote.

Possibly equality as to nationality may be a subject that could be placed upon the international agenda, as general agreement upon this matter should, so far as possible, be secured.

GEORGE GRAFTON WILSON.

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The announcement of a formal alliance between Czecho-Slovakia, Roumania, and Jugo-Slavia is an event of profound significance. Doctor Benès, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Czecho-Slovakia, is quoted to have said at Belgrade:

We know the Magyars as a fantastic nation, who desire to expand, and who cannot easily adapt themselves to the present situation. We must, therefore, establish guarantees. Our alliance is not a question of only our two States, but a European question.1

This statement might well serve as a text for a general criticism of the alliance, but we have also a further pregnant statement by Doctor Benès in Le Matin of August 30, 1920, which is of great interest:

It has been our wish to prove to Europe that the former Austria-Hungary is no longer necessary to Europe, and that even the idea of any kind of Danube Confederation may be quietly and permanently abandoned, because we ourselves can unite in a group and establish order and close coöperation without the creation of political and economic unity which would injure the various States concerned.

We wish to prove that the Allies, in destroying the former monarchy, have not committed a political error.2

It is lamentably true that, as the result of the decisions of the Paris Peace Conference, the term "fantastic nation" employed by Doctor Benès may properly be applied to Hungary. Deprived of essential resources, bleeding at many of its economic arteries by reason of the amazing surgical operation performed on Hungary, and separated from some six millions of their fellow-countrymen, the Magyars truly "cannot easily adapt themselves to the present situation." They cannot consider such a political adjustment as either just or permanent.

Against this common menace, Czecho-Slovakia, Roumania, and Jugo-Slavia, as the chief beneficiaries of the mutilation of Hungary, are compelled to band themselves together in a defensive alliance. An added reason for this combination is the uneasy feeling in Prague concerning a none-too-friendly Poland having possible friendly leanings towards Hungary, which at the time of the Bolshevist invasion offered to come to the help of Poland, when Czecho-Slovakia refused even to permit war supplies to be forwarded to her beleaguered neighbor. A further reason for this alliance is the desire for a Slavic rapprochement between Prague and Belgrade through the physically connecting link of Roumania via the grotesque corridor of Ruthenia.

The question of this alliance must be viewed also from the point of view of France, which since the armistice has been feverishly active in the pursuit of that ignis fatuus of Talleyrand, Metternich, and Bismarck, termed ironically the "equilibrium of Europe." France would evidently favor, for the purpose of offsetting both Russia and Germany, a belt of strong independent nations reaching from the North Sea to the Egean, and including Poland, CzechoSlovakia, Roumania, Jugo-Slavia, and Greece, not even excepting Hungary and Bulgaria as well. In the great game of maintaining an alleged balance of power

1 New York Times Current History, November, p. 354.

2 Quoted in the Contemporary Review for November, 1920, p. 722.

between various counteracting forces, all kinds of "combinazione" may be invoked, according to the devotees of this fantastic diplomatic game. No one nation nor group of nations may be permitted to be too powerful. Italy must be checked as well as Hungary! What Bismarck euphonistically termed "treaties of reinsurance" between individual members of opposing alliances are even countenanced. A special understanding between Hungary and Roumania is not inconceivable, and in fact is actually under contemplation. Roumania's situation as a neighbor of Bolshevism, and with a new terra irredenta populated by large masses of irreconcilable Magyars, is so embarrassing that a rapprochement with Hungary would be highly desirable even though it involved a retrocession of Temesvar.

Furthermore, it is impossible to ignore the menacing specter of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire-that Danubian Confederation which Doctor Benès would so gladly conjure away. There is something pathetic in his attempt to argue that there was nothing inherently sound in the economic solidarity that existed between the various component parts of the old Empire, and in his naïve "wish to prove that the Allies in destroying the former monarchy have not committed a political error."

This apprehension lest the artificial arrangements effected by the Paris Conference may not endure is entirely legitimate. It would be folly to ask the overburdened League of Nations to guarantee so false and iniquitous a status quo. Out of such a welter of unhappiness and turmoil anything may happen: even the re-creation of a Danubian confederacy embracing Vienna, Prague, and Budapest, not excluding Munich. Austria alone, a proud mendicant dependent on the charity of the world, is bound to seek points d'appui wherever she may find them, though she may have to run counter to that cynical clause in the Treaty of St. Germain which guarantees to Austria her "inalienable independence!"

For all these reasons, therefore, Doctor Benès is right in asserting that the "Little Entente" is a European question. The peace of Europe and the whole problem of international organization is vitally affected. Alliances and counteralliances may seek to preserve a fictitious equilibrium for a season, but the foundations of international law and order have not been laid by the decisions of the Peace Conference at Paris.

International law can only apply successfully between positive political entities that are not subject to serious fluctuations and alterations. It cannot be built on any such foundations as were laid at Paris or rely on such groupings and shiftings of nations as are typified in the "Little Entente."

PHILIP MARSHALL BROWN.

THE UNDERSTANDINGS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

The scholarly article on the subject of "The Understandings of International Law," by Doctor Quincy Wright in the October number of this JOURNAL,1 serves to clarify the question raised in the editorial of October, 1919,2 regarding the significance of this singular phrase in the preamble of the Covenant of the League of Nations.

Doctor Wright discloses how the term "understandings" has been elsewhere employed by the assumed draftsman of the preamble, though employed in a rather loose manner as contrasted with the concise use of the same term by Dicey in his distinction between "the understandings of politics" and "the commands of law."'

Doctor Wright is undoubtedly correct in his argument that all law rests ultimately on assent through the exercise of understanding and reason. Once that intelligent assent is accorded, however, law passes into a stage beyond discussion and understanding implying a possible ground for disagreement. We are thinking of a law which has been definitely crystallized by judicial decisions as well as by a long line of established precedents; of a law whose principles have been so clearly enunciated by publicists as to admit of no possibility of misunderstanding.

While not assenting to all of his deductions, we may accept as entirely sound Doctor Wright's conclusions: "Thus from the context we gather that 'the understandings of international law' consist of that portion of international law not embodied in formal principles of justice, but sanctioned by general assent and dealing especially with the organization of international society" (page 569). And again: "The constitution of the League of Nations is to be built up of understandings in the twilight zone of law and morality. . (page 580).

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It is quite apparent, therefore, that those who drafted the Covenant did not have in mind the great body of existing international law which has passed beyond the stage of discussion and understanding. They were thinking of "the organization of international society," of "the constitution of the League of Nations." In other words, the members of the League of Nations will endeavor to carry out faithfully the understandings they may have reached concerning this attempt to organize the family of nations. They have ignored, in the main, the great problem of the firm establishment and orderly development of the existing body of international law.

Doctor Alejandro Alvarez, the distinguished Chilean publicist, has brought out most clearly this distinction between an international public law for the organization of nations, and the pure law of nations, in his most suggestive "Communication to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences" of प 4, 1919. He has rendered an important service in repeatedly drawing attentiv to the fact that, just as Europe has its own political system, so the American Continent has its own peculiar political system, infelicitously characterized in

1 Vol. 14, p. 565.

2 Vol. 13, p. 739.

3 This JOURNAL, Vol. 14, p. 574.

4 Revue des Sciences politiques du 15 fevrier 1920.

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