BELLIGERENT RIGHTS

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20270, 12 August 1937, Page 16

BELLIGERENT RIGHTS

GRANT BY THIRD STATE. AN EXPLANATORY REVIEW. The grant of belligerent rights to a belligerent community (writes Professor A. H. Charteris, in the Sydney Dally Telegraph) gives the community rights and duties identical with those attaching to a State for the purposes of its warlike operations, and compels the parent State to treat the recognising State as neutral in the struggle. It is usually accorded by a “declaration of neutrality,” which warns the nations of the third State of the existence of regular war and the rights of interference with neutral commerce accruing to the belligerent reoognised. By granting belligerent rights a neutral State is bound to acquiesce in belligerent interference with ships under its flag, even on the high seas, provided such action does not exceed the limits prescribed by customary and conventional international law. A neutral national, moreover, Is entitled to supply to either belligerent party arms, ammunition, and other commoidties useful in war, subject always to the risk of frustration of the adventure by capture at the hands of his customer's enemy. Of belligerent interference the main grounds are three: (a) carriage of contraband, (b) breach of blockade, and (c) unneutral service. Contraband. The term denotes commodities which a belligerent by public notice forbids neutrals to carry to his enemy on pain of confiscation of the goods and, in certain circumstances, of the neutral carrying ship as well. The term Includes two main categories: (a) Goods which are only of use in war (absolute contraband) ; (b) goods of dual use—i.e., both in peace and in war (conditional contraband) e.b., ooal, foodstufls, aeroplanes. If shown by the circumstances to be intended for warlike use by the enemy suoh goods may be treated as contraband. It is the practice for a belligerent to make publio notification of the goods which he elects to treat as contraband when in transit to his enemy, and this by declaration, which usually contains two lists: (a) absolute and (b) conditional contraband. If a belligerent departs from recognised principles in compiling his lists It is open to neutral Governments to protest, with effect varying with their power. To render goods liable to seizure as contraband they must (1) figure on the contraband list and (2) have an enemy destination. If on the contraband list, but aotually in transit away from an enemy country, goods are not liable to seizure as contraband. At any point between port of embarkation and destination in enemy country the neutral carrying ship is liable to belligerent visit and search, and, in'an appropriate, case, to seizure for carriage of contraband. It is the duty of the captor to send his prize into a port of his own or an allied country for adjudication by a Prize Court, before which the neutral owner is entitled to appear and show cause why his property should be released. If the goods are adjudged "good prize,” the court makes an order for *ale, under which the purchaser obtains a title Internationally valid. The penalty of confiscation falls primarily of contraband goods, but I affects also innocent goods belonging jto the same owner. Except where the carriage of contraband is shown to be the main purpose of the adventure, the carrying ship is not penalised save by loss of earnings during deviation and detention in the prize court. | Blockade. Blockade is "an act of war c ' out by warships of a belligerent to prevent access to or departure from a defined part of the enemy’s coast.” To be binding a blockade must be effective, declared and notified. Blockade takes two forms: (1) Strateglo and (2) commercial. The former may be undertaken as part of some operation proceeding on land, or It may consist of imprisoning an enemy’s fleet In its own ports (as Nelson did in the French wars). Commercial blockade, on the other hand, has no immediate military end; but aims gt weakening the enemy by cutting off his commerce with the blockaded area. It was first used on a grand scale in the American Civil War, when President Lincoln, on April 19, 1861, proclaimed a blockade of the entire coastline (some 3000 miles) of the seven seceded States, without having at that time a sufficient fleet to make the blockade effective. The penalty of breach of blockade is confiscation of ship and cargo, irrespective of ownership or character of goods. Under the head of “un-neutral service” neutral vessels are liable to seizure and the same treatment as enemy vessels because of their employment by the enemy Government as (e.g.) despatch carriers, troop transports, naval colliers or storeships. The penalty is conflscatiQn of ship and cargo. On these topics the law in force is primarily the law of nations as enforced by national prize courts. Of relevant treaty laws there is little beyond the famous Declaration of Paris on Maritime Law of 1856, to which Spain adhered in 1911. That declaration curtailed belligerent rights and mentioned contraband without defining it. As regards foodstuffs, Great Britain and the United States protested successfully, but were unable to obtain any mitigation regarding fuel. At tho Second “Peace” Conference in 1907 these and other vexed questions of maritime law concerning neutrals were under discussion, but the disagreement could not be bridged. Great Britain, therefore, summoned a smaller conference, consisting of the Gr*'at Powers, with the addition of Holland and Spain, to meet in London in 1908 for the purpose of reaching an agreement on the disputed questions which might serve as a code for tlie projected International Prize Court of Appeal established bv agreement at The Hague in 1907. This conference led to the ill-slarre,d Declaration of London on Maritime Law, which was signed on February 28. 1909, but most fortunately was never ratified.