International law Author:William Edward Hall Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PARTI. The fun- states f Eight of wid de-"8 1 ''.'"! CHAPTER II. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW GOVERNING STATES IN THEIR NORMAL RELATIONS. ... more » §7. The ultimate foundation of international law is an assumpt;ion that states possess rights and are subject to duties corresponding to the facts of their postulated nature. I" virtue of this assumption it is held that since states exist, an( are independent beings, possessing property, they have the right to do whatever is necessary for the purpose of continuing and developing their existence, of giving effect to and preserving their independence, and of holding and acquiring property, subject to the qualification that they are bound correlatively to respect these rights in others. It is also considered that their moral nature imposes upon them the duties of good faith, of concession of redress for wrongs, of regard for the personal dignity of their fellows, and to a certain extent of sociability. § 8. Under the conditions of state life, the right to continue aQd develop existence gives to a state the rights — i. To organise itself in such manner as it may choose. a. To do within its dominions whatever acts it may think calculated to render it prosperous and strong. 3. To occupy unappropriated territory, and to incorporate new provinces with the free consent of the inhabitants, provided that the rights of another state over any such province are not violated by its incorporation. Thus a state may place itself under any form of government that it wishes, and may frame its social institutions upon anymodel. To foreign states the political or social doctrines PART I. which may be exemplified in it, or may spread from it, are 1 legally immaterial. A state has a right to live its life in its own way, s...« less