PLEBISCITES With a Collection of Official Documents BY SARAH WAMBAUGH PREPARED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF JAMES BROWN SCOTT Director of the Division of International Law of the Carnegie Endowment NEW YORK OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH: 35 WEST 32ND Street LONDON, TORONTO, MELBOURNE, AND BOMBAY 1920 INTRODUCTORY NOTE From time to time a plebiscitum has been held by the interested nations in order to ascertain the sentiment of a community in the matter of transfer of the allegiance of the inhabitants of a given territory which, by agreement of the nations involved, is to be ceded from one country to another. Within recent years the doctrine of plebiscites based more or less upon isolated practice has found its way into treatises on international law. The treatment of the doctrine, however, has hitherto been fragmentary and the documents upon which the doctrine is based have not hitherto been assembled. In the belief that an exposition of the theory and practice of plebiscites as applied to States would not only be valuable historically but that it would be of service to publicists having to deal with such questions, Miss Sarah Wambaugh has collected for the Division of International Law of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the documents relating to this subject and has prefixed to them a monograph in which she lays before the reader the result of her investigations in this interesting but hitherto unexplored domain. The importance and timeliness of this volume are very great. It is important in that it is the first adequate treatment of the subject, laying before the reader, as it does, in the original language, and in English translation whenever the original text is in a foreign tongue, documents relating to plebiscites which have never before been brought together and whose very existence has not been suspected even by persons interested in the subject. It is timely in that the Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany, signed at Versailles, June 28, 1919, provides for plebiscites to be held in many instances. In view of these facts, Miss Wambaugh's volume has a present interest not merely for the student of international law, but for the statesman, diplomat, and expert called upon to deal with plebiscites in the concrete cases provided for by the various treaties putting an end to the War of 1914. JAMES BROWN SCOTT, Director of the Division of International Law. PARIS, FRANCE, |