§ 111. In Asia only Japan is a full and real member of the Family of Nations. Persia, China, Siam, Tibet, and Afghanistan are for some parts only within that family.
POSITION OF THE STATES WITHIN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS
Vattel, I. §§ 13-25--Hall, § 7--Westlake, I. pp. 293-296--Lawrence, § 57--Phillimore, I. §§ 144-147--Twiss, I. § 106--Wharton, § 60--Moore, I. § 23--Bluntschli, §§ 64-81--Hartmann, § 15--Heffter, § 26--Holtzendorff in Holtzendorff, II. pp. 47-51--Gareis, §§ 24-25--Liszt, § 7--Ullmann, § 38--Bonfils, Nos. 235-241--Despagnet, Nos. 165-166--Nys, II. pp. 176-181--Pradier-Fodéré, I. Nos. 165-195--Mérignhac, I. pp. 233-238--Rivier, I. § 19--Fiore, I. Nos. 367-371--Martens, I. § 72--Fontenay, "Des droits et des devoirs des États entre eux" (1888)--Pillet in R.G. V. (1898), pp. 66 and 236, VI. (1899), p. 503--Cavaglieri, "I diritti fondamentali degli Stati nella Società Internazionale" (1906).
[Sidenote: The so-called Fundamental Rights.]
§ 112. Until the last two decades of the nineteenth century all jurists agreed that the membership of the Family of Nations includes so-called fundamental rights for States. Such rights are chiefly enumerated as the right of existence, of self-preservation, of equality, of independence, of territorial supremacy, of holding and acquiring territory, of intercourse, and of good name and reputation. It was and is maintained that these fundamental rights are a matter of course and self-evident, since the Family of Nations consists of Sovereign States. But no unanimity exists with regard to the number, the names, and the contents of these alleged fundamental rights. A great confusion exists in this matter, and hardly two text-book writers agree in details with regard to it. This condition of things has led to a searching criticism of the whole matter, and several writers[177] have in consequence thereof asked that the fundamental rights of States should totally disappear from the treatises on the Law of Nations. I certainly agree with this. Yet it must be taken into consideration that under the wrong heading of fundamental rights a good many correct statements have been made for hundreds of years, and that numerous real rights and duties are customarily recognised which are derived from the very membership of the Family of Nations. They are rights and duties which do not rise from international treaties between a multitude of States, but which the States customarily hold as International Persons, and which they grant and receive reciprocally as members of the Family of Nations. They are rights and duties connected with the position of the States within the Family of Nations, and it is therefore only adequate to their importance to discuss them in a special chapter under that heading.