INTRODUCTION Ixxxv 



it attached to the land and followed it into whose hands soever it might 

 pass, irrespective of the person temporarily invested with ownership 

 of the property. 



The real nature of the international servitude was recognized by Lord 

 Salisbury, who, in discussing the nature of the French right, stated in 

 the House of Lords, that the claim of France to fishing rights in New- 

 foundland would not be "ia the shghtest degree affected if they " [inhab- 

 itants of Newfoundland] " were now at liberty to tender their allegiance 

 to any sovereign or state in the world. The rights of the French would 

 attach to that part of the coast, under whatever allegiance they might 

 rest." 1 



In the more elaborate treatment of servitudes in his French treatise, 

 published in 1896, Rivier states the doctrine at very considerable length, 

 and his views, based upon theory and the practice of nations, may be 

 briefly summarized as follows: 



International servitudes are relations of state to state; they are 

 real as distinguished from personal rights burdening the territory of one 

 state for the benefit of another state, and pass with the territory to the 

 successors of the servient and dominant states; they have a permanent 

 character and are a permanent restriction of territorial sovereignty and 

 not of independence in general; the contiguity required for servitudes 

 of private law is not indispensable in the case of states, for sov- 

 ereign states are none the less neighbors although distant; and finally 

 international servitudes are to be exercised with care and consideration. 

 It is not necessary that the right granted be exclusive in its nature, for 

 if susceptible of use by the grantor without depriving the grantee of 

 his right to beneficial enjoyment, use by the grantor is presumed. The 

 servitude is a grant from one sovereign to another sovereign state, but 

 the right so granted may be exercised by the subjects, citizens, or in- 

 habitants of the grantee by virtue of the grant to the state, or if the 

 grant specified the inhabitants as beneficiaries it is none the less a grant 

 to the sovereign state for the benefit of its inhabitants. 



The French right, whether exclusive or not, would thus be a servi- 

 tude, provided the other essentials were present. The expression "in 

 common," under the Convention of 1818, is not fatal to the existence of 

 the servitude, because in the absence of the expression the right of the 

 grantor to fish within Newfoundland waters would be presumed without 

 an express statement to that effect. It is thus seen that the liberty 

 secured by the Convention of 1818 possesses the essential characteristics 



' Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, Vol. CCCLXI, pp. 113, 114. Quoted in Mr. Turner's 

 Argument, Oral Argument, Vol. I, p. 347. 



