eaties affected persons belonging to racial, religious or linguistic minorities, they constituted obligations of international concern and were to be placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations. Any Member of the Council of the League of Nations had the right to bring to the attention of the Council any infraction, or any danger of infraction, of any of these obligations, and the Council could thereupon take such action and give such direction as it deemed proper and effective in the circumstances. In the case any difference of opinion as to questions of law or fact arising out of these Articles between the given Government and any one of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers or any other Power, a Member of the Council of the League of Nations, was to be held a dispute of an international character under Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. The given Government consented that any such dispute should, if the other party thereto demanded, be referred to the Permanent Court of International Justice. The decision of the Permanent Court was to be considered final.
5. The last unit contains regulations that take special and local circumstances into consideration. For example, the Polish Treaty contained special stipulations with respect to Jews. The treaties signed with Yugoslavia and Greece contained stipulations on the protection of the Muslim minority. The Czech Treaty included the charter of the autonomy of the Ruthenians living in the southern parts of the Carpathians. Romania would guarantee autonomy to the Székely and Saxons in educational and religious matters; etc.
In the following I shall present the most important rules of substantive minority law on the basis of the Polish Treaty. I shall touch upon the articles of other treaties only in the case they depart from the Polish model.
In Article 1, Poland undertook that the stipulations contained in Articles 2 to 8 of this Chapter should be recognised as fundamental laws, and that no law, regulation or official action should conflict 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 the