Reprisals must be proportionate. Embargo. § 39. Reprisals, be they positive or negative, must be in proportion to the wrong done, and to the amount of compulsion necessary to get reparation. For instance, a State would not be justified in arresting, by way of reprisal, thousands of foreign subjects living on its territory because their home State had denied justice to one of its subjects living abroad. But it would be justified in ordering its own courts to deny justice to all subjects of that foreign State, or in ordering its fleet to seize several vessels sailing under the flag of that State, or in suspending a commercial treaty with it. § 40. A kind of reprisal, which is called embargo, must be specially mentioned. This term of Spanish origin means detention, but in International Law it has the technical meaning of detention of ships in port. Now, as by way of reprisal all acts, otherwise illegal, may be performed, there is no doubt that ships of the delinquent State may be prevented from leaving the ports of the injured State for the purpose of compelling the delinquent State to make reparation for the wrong done.1 But the important point is to distinguish embargo by way of reprisal from detention of ships for other reasons. According to a rule of International Law, believed to be obsolete until the World War,2 conflicting States could, when war was breaking out or impending, lay an embargo on, and appropriate each other's merchantmen. Another kind of embargo is the so-called arrêt de prince 3—that is, a detention of foreign ships to prevent the spread of news of political importance. And there is, thirdly, embargo arising out of the so-called jus 1 Thus in 1840-see above, § 34Great Britain laid an embargo on Sicilian ships. 2 See, however, below, § 102a, where the attitude of belligerents at the outbreak of the World War is discussed. 3 See Steck, Versuch über Handelsund Schiffahrts-Verträge (1782), p. 355; Caumont, Dictionnaire universel de Droit maritime (1867), pp. 247-265; Calvo, iii. § 1277; Pradier-Fodéré, v. p. 719; Holtzendorff, iv. pp. 98-104. angariæ—that is, the right of a belligerent State to seize, and make use of, neutral property in case of necessity, under the obligation to compensate the neutral owner.1 These kinds of international embargo must not be confounded with the so-called civil embargo of English Municipal Law 2—namely, an order of the sovereign to English ships not to leave English ports. tions and when Re is made. § 41. Like all other compulsive means of settling Reprisals international differences, reprisals are admissible only to be pre after negotiations have been conducted in vain for the Negotia purpose of obtaining reparation from the delinquent to be State. In former times, when States used to authorise stopped private individuals to perform special reprisals, treaties paration of commerce and peace frequently stipulated for a certain period of time, for instance three or four months, to elapse after an application for redress before the grant of letters of marque by the injured State. Although with the disappearance of special reprisals this is now antiquated, a reasonable time for the performance of reparation must even nowadays be given. On the other hand, reprisals must at once cease when the delinquent State makes the necessary reparation. Individuals arrested must be set free, goods and ships seized must be handed back, occupied territory must be evacuated, suspended treaties must again be put into force, and the like. It must be specially mentioned that in the case of recovery of contract debts claimed from the Government of one country by the Government of another country as being due to its nationals, reprisals by means of armed forces can, according to Article 1 of Convention II., only be resorted to in case the debtor State refuses arbitration. 1 See below, §§ 364-365. See Phillimore, iii. § 26. * See Phillimore, iii. § 14. during Reprisals § 42. Reprisals in time of peace must not be conPeace in founded with reprisals between belligerents. Whereas contradis the former are resorted to for the purpose of settling tinction sals during War. to Repri- a conflict without going to war, the latter1 are retaliations to force an enemy guilty of a certain act of illegitimate warfare to comply with the laws of war. Value of § 43. The value of reprisals as a means of settling Reprisals. international differences is analogous to the value of retorsion. States have recourse to reprisals for such international delinquencies as they think not important enough for a declaration of war, but too important to be entirely overlooked. That reprisals are rather a rough means for the settlement of differences, and that the institution of reprisals can give, and has in the past given, occasion for abuse in case of a difference between a powerful and a weak State, cannot be denied. On the other hand, as there is no court and no central authority above the sovereign States which could compel a delinquent State to make reparation, the institution of reprisals can scarcely be abolished. The influence in the future of the means for settling disputes which have been evolved since 1899 remains to be seen. If all the States would adopt one or other of these methods in all cases of an alleged international delinquency which affected neither their national honour nor their vital interests and independence, and if the machinery set up by the Covenant of the League of Nations should be effective, acts of reprisal would almost disappear. 1 See below, § 247. IV PACIFIC BLOCKADE Hall, § 121-Lawrence, § 138-Westlake, ii. pp. 11-18, and Papers, pp. 572589-Taylor, § 444-Moore, vii. § 1097-Bluntschli, §§ 506-507-Heffter, § 112-Bulmerincq in Holtzendorff, iv. pp. 116-127-Ullmann, § 162— Bonfils, Nos. 986-994-Despagnet, Nos. 496-498-Mérignhac, iii". pp. 60-64-Pradier-Fodéré, v. Nos. 2483-2489, vi. No. 2648-Rivier, ii. § 60-Nys, ii. pp. 590-593-Calvo, iii. §§ 1832-1859-Fiore, ii. No. 1231, and Code, Nos. 1409-1419-Martens, ii. 105-Holland, Studies, pp. 130-150-Deane, The Law of Blockade (1870), pp. 45-48-Fauchille, Du Blocus maritime (1882), pp. 37-67-Falcke, Die Hauptperioden der sogenannten Friedensblockader (1891), and in Z.I., xix. (1909), pp. 63-175 -Barès, Le Blocus pacifique (1898)-Ducrocq, Représailles en Temps de Paix (1901), pp. 59-174-Hogan, Pacific Blockade (1908)-Söderquist, Le Blocus maritime (1908)—Staudacher, Die Friedensblockade (1909)— Drossos, ΤΟ ΠΡΟΒΛΗΜΑ ΤΩΝ ΕΙΡΗΝΙΚΩΝ ΑΠΟΚΛΕΙΣΜΩΝ (The Problem of Pacific Blockades, 1912). ment of Blockade. § 44. Before the nineteenth century blockade was Developonly known as a measure between belligerents in time Practice of war. It was not until the second quarter of the of Pacific nineteenth century that a so-called pacific blockadethat is, a blockade during time of peace-was first resorted to as a compulsive means of settling an international difference. All cases of pacific blockade are cases either of intervention or of reprisals. The first case, one of intervention, happened in 1827, when, during the Greek insurrection, Great Britain, France, and Russia intervened in the interest of the independence of Greece, and blockaded those parts of the Greek coast which were occupied by Turkish troops. Although this blockade led to the battle of Navarino, in which 1 A blockade instituted by a State against portions of its own territory in revolt is not a blockade for the purpose of settling international differences. It has, therefore, in itself nothing to do with the Law of Nations, but is a matter of internal police. I cannot, therefore, agree with Holland, who, in his Studies in International Law, p. 138, treats it as a pacific blockade sensu generali. the Turkish fleet was destroyed, the Powers maintained, nevertheless, that they were not at war with Turkey. In 1831 France blockaded the Tagus as an act of reprisal for the purpose of exacting redress from Portugal for injuries sustained by French subjects. Great Britain and France, exercising intervention for the purpose of making Holland consent to the independence of revolting Belgium, blockaded the coast of Holland in 1833. In 1838 France blockaded the ports of Mexico as an act of reprisal, but Mexico replied with a declaration of war. Likewise as an act of reprisal, and in the same year, France blockaded the ports of Argentina; and in 1845, conjointly with Great Britain, France blockaded the ports of Argentina a second time. In 1850, in the course of her differences with Greece relative to Don Pacifico,1 Great Britain blockaded the Greek ports, but against Greek vessels only. Another case of intervention was the pacific blockade instituted in 1860 by Sardinia, in aid of an insurrection against the then Sicilian ports of Messina and Gaeta, but the following year saw the conversion of the pacific blockade into a war blockade. In 1862 Great Britain, by way of reprisal for the plundering of a wrecked British merchantman, blockaded the Brazilian port of Rio de Janeiro. The blockade of the island of Formosa by France during her differences with China in 1884, and that of the port of Menam by France during her differences with Siam in 1893, are likewise cases of reprisals. On the other hand, cases of intervention are the blockade of the Greek coast in 1886 by Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Italy, and Russia, for the purpose of preventing Greece from making war against Turkey; and further, the blockade of the island of Crete in 1897 by the united Powers. In 1902, Great Britain, Germany, and Italy blockaded, by way of reprisal, the coast of 1 See above, § 35. |