Wikipedia defines the term as a group of people sharing a common language, culture, history, ancestry and/or territory.
Duhaime's law dictionary defines the term as the same.
While wikipedia, uses members input to come to its conclusions, Duhaime uses legal precedent, historic interpretation and cited, globally recognized definition.
But these definitions, as simplified as they are, in those citations, were determined to some extent, by international law, regarding Nations, States and Sovereignty. As exampled by Emmerich de Vattel, the grand father of international law, as he stated in 1758,
"A nation, or a state, is a body politic, or a society of men united together for the purpose of promoting their mutual safety and advantage by their combined strength.
By the very design that induces a number of men to form a society which has its common interests, and which is to act in concert, it is necessary that there be established a public authority, to order and direct what is to be done by each in relation to the end of the association. This political authority is the sovereignty and he or they who are invested with it are the sovereign. "
This is clarified, in the confusion caused by two states occupying a similar territory, by the writ of "States bound by unequal alliance". Which states,
"We ought therefore, to account as sovereign states those which have united themselves to another more powerful, by an unequal alliance, in which as Aristotle says, to the more powerful is given more honour, and to the weaker, more assistance.
The conditions of those alliances may be infinitely varied, but whatever they are, provided the inferior reserve itself the sovereignty, or the right of governing its own body, it ought to be consider as an independent state, that keeps up an intercourse with others under the authority of the Law of Nations"
Further clarified and strengthened by, the writ regarding "Treaty of Protection".
"Consequently a weak state, which, in order to provide for its safety, places itself under the protection of a more powerful one, and engages, in return, to perform several offices equivalent to that protection, without however of divesting itself of the right of government and sovereignty, that state, I say, does not, on this account, cease to rank among sovereigns that acknowledge no other law than that of nations."
All of which, of course, influenced King George III, in his Royal Proclamation, of 1763. Solidifying the rights of First Nations, as title holders and acknowledging First Nations as sovereign.
Duhaime's law dictionary defines the term as the same.
While wikipedia, uses members input to come to its conclusions, Duhaime uses legal precedent, historic interpretation and cited, globally recognized definition.
But these definitions, as simplified as they are, in those citations, were determined to some extent, by international law, regarding Nations, States and Sovereignty. As exampled by Emmerich de Vattel, the grand father of international law, as he stated in 1758,
"A nation, or a state, is a body politic, or a society of men united together for the purpose of promoting their mutual safety and advantage by their combined strength.
By the very design that induces a number of men to form a society which has its common interests, and which is to act in concert, it is necessary that there be established a public authority, to order and direct what is to be done by each in relation to the end of the association. This political authority is the sovereignty and he or they who are invested with it are the sovereign. "
This is clarified, in the confusion caused by two states occupying a similar territory, by the writ of "States bound by unequal alliance". Which states,
"We ought therefore, to account as sovereign states those which have united themselves to another more powerful, by an unequal alliance, in which as Aristotle says, to the more powerful is given more honour, and to the weaker, more assistance.
The conditions of those alliances may be infinitely varied, but whatever they are, provided the inferior reserve itself the sovereignty, or the right of governing its own body, it ought to be consider as an independent state, that keeps up an intercourse with others under the authority of the Law of Nations"
Further clarified and strengthened by, the writ regarding "Treaty of Protection".
"Consequently a weak state, which, in order to provide for its safety, places itself under the protection of a more powerful one, and engages, in return, to perform several offices equivalent to that protection, without however of divesting itself of the right of government and sovereignty, that state, I say, does not, on this account, cease to rank among sovereigns that acknowledge no other law than that of nations."
All of which, of course, influenced King George III, in his Royal Proclamation, of 1763. Solidifying the rights of First Nations, as title holders and acknowledging First Nations as sovereign.
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