Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1938, Side 83
THE KINGDOM OF ICELAND
SOME REMARKS ON ITS CONSTITUTIONAL AND
INTERNATIONAL STATUS.
By Sveinn Björnsson.
OF the five Northern States, Iceland is the only one whose
sovereign status is not always fully realized abroad, espe-
cially outside Scandinavia, the reason being no doubt the
fact that Iceland and Denmark have the same King. What, then,
is the status of Iceland in relation to Denmark? Can comparisons
be drawn with other connections between wholly or partly sover-
eign States? Is the connection of the same character as the union
between Norway and Sweden under one King prior to 1905?
Are the relations between Iceland and Denmark the same as
those that exist between Great Britain and her Dominions or
colonies? Is not Iceland dependent on Denmark, politically or
in law? All these are questions which one occasionally encounters.
Such questions spring, perhaps, from the well-known tendency
of people who have not fully grasped a problem, to identify it
with some other problem with which they are already familiar,
a tendency which in this case is further increased by certain actual
and historical circumstances.
Can a country with only 120,000 inhabitants be a sovereign
kingdom, it is sometimes asked. Can it be completely independent
of any other State? The answer to this question is that the right
or ability of a country to exercise sovereignty over all its affairs
cannot possible depend on the size of its population. If that were
so, the logical consequence would be that we should have to as-
sume a difference of degree between the sovereignty exercised by
different states, so that e. g. Norway or Switzerland would be
less sovereign than the U. S. A., which has a population 40 and
30 times larger than those of Norway and Switzerland respective-
ly. Consequently, Iceland would be less sovereign than Norway
and Switzerland, who have populations 30 and 40 times larger,
respectively, than Iceland. Now, while there is indisputably a dif-
ference of degree as regards wealth and power, sovereignty, i. e.
the absolute right of determination in all the affairs of the State,
is the same in all sovereign States. In the case of Iceland, the posi-
tion is further clarified by the fact that its population is homo-