CHAPTER IV. MEANS OF INTERNATIONAL REDRESS. 1595 § 33. Negotiation, whether direct or through the good Negotiaoffices of third Powers, constitutes as yet the only regular mode tion the for the peaceful determination of international difficulties. ordinary peaceful path to national tion. Papers, States, Nos. and 12 In spite of well-meant and well-directed efforts the interPowers of the Circle have not hitherto established a per- satisfacmanent Court or Board for the settlement of international disputes, although recent events seem fertile in promise. Parl. Special Tribunals of Arbitration for the settlement of special United' disputes have been from time to time successfully constructed, and special questions have been dealt with in special Congresses or Conferences of the interested states, or of the Great Powers of Europe and America, but these references and these assemblies have been hitherto temporary and particular only, and all alike the outcome of special negotiation. Negotiation, in fine, whether directly or mediatively undertaken, does as yet constitute the only peaceful means of redress which lies open to a state complaining of wrong, or seeking the recognition of a disputed right. When negotiation fails to secure redress, whether entire or in the way of compromise, and whether directly or as the result of arbitration, a dissatisfied state unwilling to yield the contested question can, in default of the interference of more influential neighbours, only appeal to measures of actual force. A dissatisfied state may, on § 34. Satisfaction being otherwise unprocurable, states may have recourse to forcible measures falling short of war, or, in the the failure last resort, to war itself. of negotiation, have recourse to forcible measures. The main accepted inter national measures of force. sals, 3 Wharton, Dig. § 318. The measures of force which a state may employ against a neighbour are many and various. The main varieties are, however, capable of simple classification. (a) The exercise of reprisals constitutes the simplest form of international forcible persuasion. "Reprisals," says Hall, "are resorted to when a specific (a) Repri- wrong has been committed; and they consist in the seizure and confiscation of property belonging to the offending state or its subjects by way of compensation in value for the wrong; or in seizure of property or acts of violence directed against individuals with the object of compelling the state to grant redress; or, finally, in the suspension of the operation of treaties." Hall, II. 2, § 120. special and general. 3 Wharton, Dig. 102. A distinction was formerly drawn between Special and General Reprisals. Special Reprisals, consisting in the exercise under formal commission of hostile acts by an injured individual in order to indemnify himself against loss by the capture of property belonging to fellow-subjects of the wrongdoer, are entirely obsolete. General Reprisals, consisting in the exercise of acts of force by any individual choosing to apply for a commission to an offended state, are fast passing away, if they have not already become a thing of the past. General Reprisals confined to the officers and men of the military and naval force of the offended Power Case of Don are still not unusual. Such General Reprisals approach very nearly to war: the grant of letters of General Reprisal being only differentiated from the grant of authority to levy war by the limited intent existing in the counsels of the responsible Government. Pacifico, 1850. Snow, 246. Retorsion, consisting in the retaliation of injustice or reference to an international lex talionis, is a special, and, in fact, the most primitive instance of the exercise of reprisals. (B) Embargo constitutes a second well-accepted method (8) Embargo. for the procuring of international satisfaction by reference to force. Embargo consists in the provisional sequestration under authority of a Government of property lying within its ports. Such a measure may be a purely municipal proceeding, the outcome of state policy, operating upon subjects of the state only, or, in case of state necessity, upon foreigners, although without any suggestion of a hostile purpose. Embargo of this order is Civil embargo. But embargo may be an international measure, the intent of the Government imposing it being to put stress upon the Government of the individuals whose property is thereby affected, albeit without having recourse to actual war. This is Hostile embargo. The distinction was pointed out by Sir W. Scott in the case of the "Boedes Lust" in 1804. "Boedes Lust," 5 C. Rob. 233. Property belonging to persons resident in Demerara was The seized in May 1803, before the outbreak of hostilities between Great Britain and Holland, under embargo laid on Dutch property in English ports. "This property," said Sir W. Scott, "was seized provisionally, an act itself hostile enough in the mere execution, but equivocal as to the effect, and liable to be varied by subsequent events, and by the conduct of the Government of Holland. If that conduct had been such as to reestablish the relations of peace, then the seizure, although made with the character of a hostile seizure, would have proved in the event a mere embargo, or temporary sequestration. The property would have been restored, as it is usual, at the conclusion of embargoes; a process often resorted to in the practice of nations for various causes not immediately connected with any expectations of hostility.... This was the state of the first measure. It was at first equivocal, and, if the matter in dispute had terminated in reconciliation, the seizure would have been converted into a mere civil embargo, so terminated. That would have been the retroactive effect of that course of circumstances. On Sir W. Scott the contrary, if the transactions end in hostility, the retroactive effect is directly the other way. It impresses the direct hostile character upon the original seizure." in the "Boedes Lust," Rob. 245. 5 C. (7) Pacific blockade. The distinction between Civil and Hostile embargo is thus purely a matter of the intent, and that intent will commonly be only made known by circumstances subsequent to the actual seizure. (y) Pacific blockade is a third favourite international measure of coercive force. Pacific blockade consists in the cutting off by one state of communication with the ports or a particular portion of coast of another, otherwise than in the case of declared M. Perels in war, with the object of preventing commercial relations by the Revue de Droit Int., 1887, p. 246. Its recent introduction, 3 Dig. 407. sea. Pacific blockade has only within very recent times asserted its title to a place amongst legitimate coercive measures falling short of war. Prior to 1827 blockade was universally held to be Wharton, essentially a belligerent right. In that year the three Powers, Great Britain, France and Russia, having taken up the cause of the revolted Greeks, established a blockade upon the coasts of Greece, with a view to putting pressure on the Sultan, while yet peace was in name maintained. This example was followed by France in the blockade of the Tagus in 1831, by Great Britain in the blockade of New Grenada in 1836, by France in Mexico and La Plata in 1838, Hall, II. 11, by Great Britain and France in La Plata in 1845 and by Great Britain in Greece in 1850. § 121. Heffter, 11. § III. and doubtful legiti macy. The legality of the proceeding was however speedily questioned, and its dubious character freely admitted. "The real truth is,” said Palmerston writing to Lord Normanby on December 7, 1846, with reference to the La Plata blockade, though we had better keep the fact to ourselves, that the French and English blockade has from the first to the last been illegal. Peel and Aberdeen have always declared that we have not been at war with Rosas, but blockade is a belligerent right, and, unless you are at war with a state, you have no right to prevent ships of other states from communication with the ports of that state, nay you cannot prevent your own merchant ships from doing so." Very various views have been recently taken concerning the legitimacy of the measure. Various views as to its legi i. It is mate. (1) According to one view, blockade is purely a bel- timacy. ligerent right, and Pacific Blockade is therefore uncon- illegitiditionally illegitimate. Pacific Blockade, according to the holders of this view, is, in fact, an outrageous expedient invented by France and England for coercing feeble states without assuming the responsibilities appropriate to a state of war. "Le droit international accorde aux belligérants certains droits auxquels les neutres sont obligés de se soumettre, bien que l'exercice de ces droits sont préjudiciable à leurs intérêts. Pour jouir de ces droits, il faut que les belligérants acceptent la responsabilité de leur état; quand il n'y a pas guerre, les neutres ne sont pas obligés de se soumettre aux restrictions de leur liberté d'action, que l'état de guerre seul autorise." (2) Accepting the same premise that blockade is purely a belligerent right, other authorities are content to draw a different conclusion, and, recognising in the so-called Pacific Blockade a real de facto act of belligerency, to quarrel only with its maladroit designation. Professor Geffcken in Droit Int. 1885, p. 146. ii. It is legitimate but wrongly styled. Opinion of MM. Bulmerincq and A. Rolin, Revue de Droit Int. 1875, p. 611. iii. It is legitimate within (3) A third view, following on similar lines, adopts Pacific Blockade as legitimate within limits. It is as between disputing Powers as legitimate as any other measure of force falling short of war, and so long as it is confined to limits. the subjects and property of those Powers it is accordingly internationally unexceptionable. But third Powers are entitled to decline to recognise the extension to their property and subjects of the operation of a measure not based upon recognised belligerent maritime right. M. Perels Revue de in the Droit Int. 1885, p. 251. (4) A fourth body of international jurists seem disposed iv. It is |