QUESTION ONE. 21 



fessor of international law at Cambridge University. Doctor Oppen- 

 heim thus deals with the subject of international servitudes : a 



State servitudes are those exceptional and conventional restric- 

 tions on the territorial supremacy of a state by which a part or a 

 whole of its territory is in a limited way made to perpetually serve a 

 certain purpose or interest of another state. Thus a state may 

 through a convention be obliged to allow the passage of troops of a 

 neighboring state, or may in the interest of a neighboring state be 

 prevented from fortifying a certain town near the frontier. (Sec. 

 203.) 



Subjects of state servitudes are states only and exclusively, since 

 state servitudes can exist between states only (territorium dominans 

 and territorium serviens). (Sec. 204.) 



******* 



The object of state servitudes is always the whole or a part of the 

 territory of the state whose territorial supremacy is restricted by 

 any such servitude. Since the territory of a state includes not only 

 the land but also the rivers which water the land, the maritime belt, 

 the territorial subsoil, and the territorial atmosphere, all these can, 

 as well as the service of the land itself, be an object of state servi- 

 tudes. Thus a state may have a perpetual right of admittance for 

 its subjects to the fishery in the maritime belt of another state, or a 

 right to lay telegraph cables through a foreign maritime belt, or a 

 right to build and use a tunnel through a boundary mountain, and 

 the like. * * * 



Since the object of state servitudes is the territory of a state, all 

 such restrictions upon the territorial supremacy of a state as do not 

 make a part or the whole of its territory itself serve a purpose or an 

 interest of another state are not state servitudes. The territory as 

 the object is the mark of distinction between state servitudes and 

 other restrictions on the territorial supremacy. Thus the perpetual 

 restriction imposed upon a state by a treaty not to keep an army 

 beyond a certain size is certainly a restriction on territorial suprem- 

 acy, but is not, as some writers maintain, a state servitude, because 

 it does not make the territory of one state serve an interest of another. 

 On the other hand, when a state submits to a perpetual right en- 

 joyed by another state of passage of troops, or to the duty not to 

 fortify a certain town on the frontier, or to the claim of another 

 state for its subjects to be allowed the fishery within the former's 

 territorial belt ; in all these and the like cases the territorial supremacy 

 of a state is in such a way restricted that a part or the whole of its 

 territory is made to serve the interest of another state and such re- 

 strictions are therefore state servitudes. (Sec. 205.) 



Since state servitudes, in contradistinction to personal rights 

 (rights in personam), are rights inherent to the object with which 

 they are connected (rights in rem), they remain valid and may be 

 exercised however the ownership of the territory to which they apply 

 may change. Therefore, if, after the creation of a state servitude, 



Oppenheim : International Law, VoL I, sees. 203, 204, 205, and 207, pp. 

 257-262. 



