[Footnote 177: See Stoerk in Holtzendorff's "Encyklopädie der Rechtswissenschaft," 2nd ed. (1890), p. 1291; Jellinek, "System der subjectiven öffentlichen Rechte" (1892), p. 302; Heilborn, "System," p. 279; and others. The arguments of these writers have met, however, considerable resistance, and the existence of fundamental rights of States is emphatically defended by other writers. See, for instance, Pillet, l.c., Liszt, § 7, and Gareis, §§ 24 and 25. Westlake, I. p. 293, now joins the ranks of those writers who deny the existence of fundamental rights.]
[Sidenote: International Personality a Body of Qualities.]
§ 113. International Personality is the term which characterises fitly the position of the States within the Family of Nations, since a State acquires International Personality through its recognition as a member. What it really means can be ascertained by going back to the basis[178] of the Law of Nations. Such basis is the common consent of the States that a body of legal rules shall regulate their intercourse with one another. Now a legally regulated intercourse between Sovereign States is only possible under the condition that a certain liberty of action is granted to every State, and that, on the other hand, every State consents to a certain restriction of action in the interest of the liberty of action granted to every other State. A State that enters into the Family of Nations retains the natural liberty of action due to it in consequence of its sovereignty, but at the same time takes over the obligation to exercise self-restraint and to restrict its liberty of action in the interest of that of other States. In entering into the Family of Nations a State comes as an equal to equals[179]; it demands that certain consideration be paid to its dignity, the retention of its independence, of its territorial and its personal supremacy. Recognition of a State as a member of the Family of Nations contains recognition of such State's equality, dignity, independence, and territorial and personal supremacy. But the recognised State recognises in turn the same qualities in other members of that family, and thereby it undertakes responsibility for violations committed by it. All these qualities constitute as a body the International Personality of a State, and International Personality may therefore be said to be the fact, given by the very membership of the Family of Nations, that equality, dignity, independence, territorial and personal supremacy, and the responsibility of every State are recognised by every other State. The States are International Persons because they recognise these qualities in one another and recognise their responsibility for violations of these qualities.