BELLIGERENCY. In International Law. The status of de facto statehood attributed to a body of insurgents, by which their hos tilities are legalized. Before they can be recognized as belligerents they must have some sort of political organization and be carrying on what in international law Is re garded as legal war. There must be an arm ed struggle between two political bodies, each of which exercises de facto authority over persons within a determined territory, and commands an army which is prepared to ob serve the ordinary laws of war. It is not enough that the insurgents have an army; they must have an organized civil authority directing the army.
The exact point at which revolt or rection becomes belligerency is often ex tremely difficult to determine ; and belliger ents are not usually recognizeds.bi nations unless they have some strong reason or ne cessity for doing so, either because the ter ritory where the belligerency is supposed to exist is contiguous to their own, or because the conflict is in some way affecting their commerce or the rights of their citizens. Thus in 1875 President Grant refused to rec ognize the Cubans as belligerents, although they had been maintaining hostilities for eight years, because they had no real and palpable political organization manifest to the world, and because, being possessed of no seaport, their contest was solely on land and without the slightest effect upon com merce ; Moore, Int. Law Dig. I, 196. One
of the most serious results of recognising belligerency Is that it frees the parent coup try from all responsibility what takes place within the insurgent lines; Dana's Wheaton, note 15, page 35.
When revolutionists have no organized po litical government and it becomes necessary to recognize them in some way, a status of insurgency (q. v.) is sometimes recognized. In this way the parent state avoids the ne cessity of treating the insurgents as pirates and third Powers obtain certain of the rights of neutrals. In 1895 Cleveland recognized 'a status of insurgency in Cuba and enjoined the observance of the Neutral' ity Laws. Moore I, 242. See Hall, 6th ed. 31-42; Hershey 118-123.