§ 98. The outbreak of war causes at once the rupture of diplomatic intercourse between the belligerents, if such rupture has not already taken place. The respective diplomatic envoys are recalled and ask for their passports, or receive them without any previous request, but they enjoy their privileges of inviolability and exterritoriality for the period of time requisite for leaving the country. Consular activity likewise comes to an end through the outbreak of war.[180] [Footnote 180: See above, vol. I. §§ 413 and 436.] [Sidenote: Cancellation of Treaties.] § 99. The doctrine was formerly held, and a few writers[181] maintain it even now, that the outbreak of war _ipso facto_ cancels all treaties previously concluded between the belligerents, such treaties only excepted as have been concluded especially for the case of war. The vast majority of modern writers on International Law have abandoned this standpoint,[182] and the opinion is pretty general that war by no means annuls every treaty. But unanimity as to what treaties are or are not cancelled by war does not exist. Neither does a uniform practice of the States exist, cases having occurred in which States have expressly declared[183] that they considered all treaties annulled through war. Thus the whole question remains as yet unsettled. Nevertheless a majority of writers agree on the following points:-- (1) The outbreak of war cancels all political treaties between the belligerents which have not been concluded for the purpose of setting up a permanent condition of things, for instance, treaties of alliance. (2) On the other hand, it is obvious that such treaties as have been especially concluded for the case of war are not annulled, such as treaties in regard to the neutralisation of certain parts of the territories of the belligerents. (3) Such political and other treaties as have been concluded for the purpose of setting up a permanent[184] condition of things are not _ipso facto_ annulled by the outbreak of war, but nothing prevents the victorious party from imposing upon the other party in the treaty of peace any alterations in, or even the dissolution of, such treaties. (4) Such non-political treaties as do not intend to set up a permanent condition of things, as treaties of commerce for example, are not _ipso facto_ annulled, but the parties may annul them or suspend them according to discretion. (5) So-called law-making[185] treaties, as the Declaration of Paris for example, are not cancelled by the outbreak of war. The same is valid in regard to all treaties to which a multitude of States are parties, as the International Postal Union for example, but the belligerents may suspend them, as far as they themselves are concerned, in case the necessities of war compel them to do so.[186] [Footnote 181: See, for instance, Phillimore, III. § 530, and Twiss, I. § 252, in contradistinction to Hall, § 125.] [Footnote 182: See Jaconnet, _op. cit._ pp. 113-128.]