t or interfere with these stipulations, nor should any law, regulation or official action prevail over them. The text of Article 1 could have equalled an internal guarantee on the part of the state, if Poland had known the institution of constitutional jurisdiction back then.
According to Article 2, Poland undertook to assure full and complete protection of life and liberty, and guaranteed the free exercise, whether public or private, of any creed, religion or belief to all inhabitants of Poland without distinction of birth, nationality, language, race or religion. This stipulation thereby ensured the protection of the most fundamental human rights. This is a legal minimum, which the states, under international unwritten law, have to guarantee to every foreign citizen.
Article 3 settled citizenship questions with respect German, Austrian, Hungarian, and Russian nationals ("ressortissants"), who live in territory which was or was to be recognised as forming part of Poland. Poland admitted and declared to be Polish nationals ipso facto and without requirement of any formality these nationals, but, at the same time, it entitled them to opt for any other nationality. This right was open to persons over eighteen years of age, with option by a husband covering his wife and option by parents covering their children under eighteen years of age. Persons who have exercised the above right to opt had to leave Poland within twelve months. They were entitled to retain their immovable property in Polish territory, and they could carry with them their movable property of every description. No export duties were to be imposed upon them in connection with the removal of such property. If we consider this right to opt an opportunity of persons affected by the state succession to opt for their former citizenship out of their own free will, then we are to infer that the persons affected by the state succession ipso facto became Polish citizens. Since members of ethnic, religious, or religious minorities were entitled to exercise their right to opt, we can undoubtedly classify Article 3 among minority protection measures.
While Article 3 determined who was entitled to opt on a territorial basis (based on one's residence), Article 4 referred to the principle of birth, although it may seem that the Polish solution referred much more to the principle of descent. Accordingly, citizenship depended not only on one's place of birth, but also on whether he was born in the said territory of parents habitually resident there. Nevertheless, within two years after the coming into force of the treaty, these persons could make a declaration before the competent Polish authorities stating that they wanted to abandon Polish nationality. They did not have to go through further formalities in this case.
In Article 5, Poland undertook to put no hindrance in the way of the exercise of the right which the persons concerned had to choose whether or not they would acquire Polish nationality.
Under Article 6, Poland eliminated one of the reasons that could have made one stateless by stating that all persons born in Polish territory who were not born nationals of another State should ipso facto become Polish nationals.
Article 7 guaranteed equality before the law and the enjoyment of the same civil and political rights for all Polish nationals without distinction as to race, language or religion. No differences of religion, creed or confession could prejudice them concerning their admission to public employments, functions and honours, or the exercise of professions and industries. No restriction could be imposed on the free use by any Polish national of any language in private intercourse, in commerce, in religion, in the press or in publications of any kind, or at public meetings. Although the first three paragraphs of the article concerned all Polish nationals, it is evident that it aimed first of all at the protection of members of ethnic, religious, or religious minorities. Paragraph 4 realised the direct protection of linguistic minorities, in so far as Polish