UNIONS OF STATES. — Two or more States may voluntarily cooperate, in a more or less stable manner, for general purposes of common interest. If the cooperation is governed by rules of internal law, a federal State is created, which, internationally, has standing as such; whereas a Confederation, leaving the confederated States as autonomous and independent entities, binds them together by ties of international law, but internationally this aspect has no relevance, since, in the name and on behalf of the Confederation, as long as it exists, the federal organs act. If, on the other hand, the cooperation is regulated by rules of particular international law, there arise the so-called U. of S.
I. UNION ON A BASIS OF INEQUALITY
The position of States may be twofold: that is, it may be ordered on a basis of equality or of inequality. If States cooperate on a basis of legal inequality, the forms of protectorate and vassalage arise (cooperation is regulated by the protectorate pact, which determines its conditions, without excluding the possibility that the protected state may be independently represented diplomatically), and that of the mandate (in its threefold form A, B, C), which came into being and disappeared with the pact of the League of Nations (art. 22), and has now been replaced by trusteeship administrations.II. UNION ON A BASIS OF EQUALITY
If relations of cooperation are based on the principle of equality among the States of the union, there are the two forms of personal union and real union.1. Personal union
Personal union is due to the accidental and temporary sharing of a sovereign, arising from internal arrangements; hence it has been doubted (Kuntz) that it can be described as a union in the strict sense. Although it creates no direct bond between the two States, each retaining its own form of government (the king of Belgium, constitutional in Belgium, was absolute sovereign in the Congo), its own responsibilities, and its own citizens (a citizen of one State is a foreigner in the other), it cannot be denied that the sovereign may find himself in difficulties in certain situations, since he may have to adopt measures contrary to one of the States of which he is sovereign in favour of the other; for this reason some constitutions expressly prohibit II. One may recall the England–Hanover union (1714–1838), which lasted more than 120 years; that of Prussia–Neuchâtel, which lasted a century and a half (1702–1857); that of the Netherlands–Luxembourg (1815–90); and that of Belgium–Congo (1885–1908). The Iceland–Denmark union (1918–44) and the Italy–Albania union (1939–43) have also been described as personal unions, but they were real unions. At present there are no personal unions. It should nevertheless be noted that these leave the personality and action of the individual States intact, which is not the case with real unions.2. Real union
A real union is distinguished by the fact that it is stably organised according to rules deriving from parallel national laws, confirmed by custom and practice, or as a result of an international treaty (a union pact), which precisely regulates the relations of union on a permanent basis. There is not merely a common head of State, but also certain organs and certain fundamental services; moreover, the union affects the special status of the citizens of the united countries.It is therefore essential to take the union pact into account. The so-called Compromise of 1867 formed the basis of the constitutional arrangement of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, placing at the head of the coalition of States included in the monarchy (1867–1918) the emperor of Austria and Hungary. By the Treaty of Moss (1815), the crown of Norway was assigned to the king of Sweden. The two States had in common the minister of foreign affairs and diplomatic representation. In 1905 (Treaty of Karlstadt), they peacefully dissolved the Union. By the law of 30 November 1918, no. 619, the two free sovereignties of Denmark and Iceland, which retained its neutrality, formed a union, reserving to Denmark the administration of certain Icelandic interests (the supreme court, currency, fishing, and foreign policy). Denmark did so with such understanding of Icelandic interests that, when sanctions were adopted against Italy for the conflict with Ethiopia, Denmark joined the sanctions, while Iceland abstained from them. The Danish-Icelandic Union Pact was due to expire in 1940. The independence movement had made progress, and in that year Denmark was occupied by German forces, while the Americans occupied Iceland. The Althing (16 May 1941) proclaimed Iceland’s independence, and in February 1944 the Act of Union was declared lapsed and the independent Republic was proclaimed (17 June 1944). The Italy–Albania union (law of 16 April 1939, no. 580) was brief; it was regulated by a series of conventions (citizenship and customs, 20 April 1939; diplomatic representation, 3 June 1939, etc.).
Personal unions end either through a change in internal arrangements, through the head of State’s renunciation of one of the two sovereignties, or through the extinction of one of the States. Real unions end either by mutual consent, through the ending of one of the States, or through the rupture of the union by the action of one of the States, endured by the other.
III. NEW FORMS OF UNION
All these unions have disappeared. The Soviet systems and those of the British Commonwealth have inspired certain new forms of union. In the Dutch-Indonesian Agreement of Batavia of 15 November 1946, an attempt was made to establish a Union of the Netherlands with the United States of Indonesia, Surinam and Curaçao. But the unitary formation of Indonesia that subsequently prevailed, together with the general development of circumstances, leaves one very doubtful about the Union’s actual substance, as it is increasingly oriented towards the symbolic sharing of the Dutch crown—that is, towards the British model for the British Commonwealth—which may itself be regarded as a particular, characteristic form of unions of states, though a highly evanescent one.Neither the French Union, as provided for in the Constitution of 1946, nor the USSR can be regarded as unions of states, since, despite the apparent equality of the constituent states, they have a leading state, and it is that state which gives the Union its character and assumes its diplomatic representation, without excluding direct diplomatic representation, even if not general, by the individual states (in fact, in the USSR only the two Russian states of Belarus and Ukraine, and in France those of Indochina).
Finally, certain unions of limited or particular scope, called simple unions, should be mentioned, since one state acts in representation of another state for specific purposes (e.g., Belgium for the customs union between Belgium and Luxembourg, Brussels Convention of 1921; Switzerland for Lichtenstein, Berne Convention of 29 March 1923), or the states form unions with regard to specific effects (e.g., Benelux, for the time being an economic union of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg; the attempt at an Italian-French customs union). This would verge on particular administrative unions if their political character did not prevail. Certain forms of (political-military) alliances must also ultimately be included among unions. The League of Nations (1920–46) and the UN are likewise unions of states, but they should rather be regarded as Societies of States for purposes of general cooperation, with a tendency to become the legal organization of the international community. This purpose, however, was absent from the League of Nations, since it failed to become universal, which was partly due
to the manner in which it came into being. Some of these defects of origin are repeated in the UN, whose further development it is difficult to predict.