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Rights and Duties Under International Law

As Affected by the United States Neutrality Act and the Resolution of Panama

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2017

Extract

While recognized members of the community of nations are bound by the established rules of international law without any explicit act of acceptance, they cannot become bound by new rules without express or implied consent. International law and municipal law have different sources and sanctions, consequently a state’s municipal law cannot be taken as the measure of either its rights or its obligations under international law.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © by the American Society of International Law 1940

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References

1 Smith, H. A., Great Britain and the Law of Nations, Vol. 1, pp. 1213 Google Scholar.

2 Harvard Research in International Law, Draft Convention on Responsibility of States, Art. 2, this Journal, Spec. Supp., Vol. 23 (1929), p. 142 ff.; Wright, Q., Mandates under the League of Nations (Chicago, 1930), p. 283 Google Scholar.

3 Wright, Q., “International Law in its Relation to Constitutional Law,” this Journal , Vol. 17 (1923), p. 234 Google Scholar ff.

4 This Journal, Supp., Vol. 34 (Jan., 1940), p. 44 ff.

5 Ibid., p. 1 ff.

6 Harvard Research Draft Convention on Neutrality, Art. 4, this Journal, Supp., Vol. 33 (1939), p. 232.

7 This exception may have been made in view of certain of the Pan American conventions, but the old rule which excepted the application of preexisting treaties from the requirement of impartiality is no longer recognized. Ibid., pp. 233–234.

8 Harvard Research Draft Convention on Neutrality, Arts. 27, 28, loc. cit., pp. 432, 435. Deák, and Jessup, , A Collection of Neutrality Laws, Regulations and Treaties of Various Countries (Washington, 1939), contains numerous regulations on auxiliaries (Vol. 2, p. 1253 Google Scholar), armed merchant vessels and submarines in neutral ports. (See index.)

9 See Borchard, E. M., this Journal , Vol. 34 (Jan., 1940), p. 107 Google Scholar ff.

10 See Department of State Bulletin, Sept. 16, 1939, Vol. I, p. 245.

11 Department of State Press Releases, June 3, 1939, Vol. XX, p. 475.

12 Harvard Research Draft Convention on Responsibility of States, Art. 5, this Journal, Spec. Supp., Vol. 23 (1929), p. 147.

13 “It is for neutral Powers an admitted duty to apply these rules impartially to the several belligerents.” Hague Convention XIII, 1907, preamble, par. 5.

14 Ibid., par. 6; Harvard Research Draft Convention on Neutrality, Art. 13, loc. cit., p. 316.

15 U. S. Foreign Relations, 1915, Supp., p. 818.

16 Draft Convention on Neutrality, Art. 13, loc. cit., p. 316.

17 Draft Convention on Neutrality, Art. 13, loc. cit., p. 316 ff.; Eagleton, Clyde, this Journal , Vol. 34 (Jan., 1940), p. 99 ff.Google Scholar; Warren, Charles, “Congress and Neutrality,” in Neutrality and Collective Security (Wright, Q., ed., Chicago, 1936), pp. 131134 Google Scholar.

18 Am. State Papers, For. Rel., Vol. 3, p. 291.

19 Monroe, Sec. of State, to Joel Barlow, Minister to France, July 26, 1811, ibid., p. 511; Fish, C. R., American Diplomacy (1923), p. 166 Google Scholar; Phillips, W. A. and Reed, Arthur H., The Napoleonic Period, in Jessup, , ed., Neutrality its History, Economics and Law, Vol. 2, p. 180 Google Scholar; Wright, Q., Enforcement of International Law through Municipal Law in the United States (1916), p. 124 Google Scholar.

20 See Harvard Research Draft Convention on Responsibility of States, Art. 14, this Journal, Spec. Supp., Vol. 23 (1929), p. 196.

21 German note to United States, Feb. 16, 1915, Department of State, European War, No. 1, p. 57; The Stigstad, [1919] A. C. 279; The Leonora, [1919] A. C. 974; Briggs, H. W., The Law of Nations (New York, 1938), p. 886 Google Scholar ff.

22 The Brig General Armstrong (1852), Moore, Int. Arb., Vol. 2, p. 1094; Briggs, op. cit., pp. 877 ff., 885 ff.

23 Art. 114. This Journal, Supp., Vol. 33 (1939), p. 788.

24 This Journal, Supp., Vol. 33 (1939), p. 790.

25 This Journal, Supp., Vol. 34 (Jan., 1940), p. 15.

26 The Law of War and Peace, Proleg., Sec. 18.

27 Department of State Bulletin, Jan. 27, 1940, Vol. II, p. 92.

28 This Journal, Supp., Vol. 34 (Jan., 1940), p. 1 ff.

29 The “understanding” was added that “this resolution shall not apply to a change of status resulting from the settlement of questions now pending between non-American states and states of the continent.” The Argentine and Guatemalan delegations made reservations concerning their respective claims to the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands and portions of British Honduras.

30 See statement in regard to Peru, New York Times, Feb. 19, 1940.

31 Resolution V, par. 3, Secs. (h), (i), (j). Cf. Borchard, cited supra, note 9.

32 Resolutions VII, par. 1; XIV. The Brazilian Government defended the Declaration of Panama “as a complement of the Monroe Doctrine and the Declarations of Buenos Aires and Lima” and as “useful for its existence and that of the other Republics of America.” (This Journal, Supp., Vol. 34 (Jan., 1940), p. 19.)

33 A. Pearce Higgins, The Hague Peace Conferences and other International Conferences concerning the Laws and Usages of War (Cambridge, 1909), pp. 2, 541, 565.

34 See British, French, and German notes of Jan. 14, 23, and Feb. 16, 1940, in reply to protest of the American Republics of Dec. 23,1939, on the Graf Spee incident. Dept. of State Bulletin, Feb. 24, 1940, Vol. II, p. 199 ff.

35 Uruguay based its action on Hague Convention XIII.

36 See Wilson, G. G., “The Law of Neutrality and the Policy of Keeping out of War,” this Journal , Vol. 34 (Jan., 1940), p. 89 Google Scholar.

37 See Brown, P. M., “Protective Jurisdiction”, this Journal , Vol. 34 (Jan., 1940), p. 112 Google Scholar ff. The Harvard Research Draft Convention on Neutrality (loc. cit., pp. 343, 348) provides:

Art. 18. A belligerent shall not engage in hostile operations on, under or over the high seas so near to the territory of a neutral State as to endanger life or property therein.

“Art. 19. A belligerent shall not permit its warships or military aircraft to hover off the coasts of a neutral State in such manner as to harass the commerce or industry of that State.” But neither of these contemplated a distance from the coast approaching 300 miles. See this Journal, Supp., Vol. 33 (1939), pp. 343–353, in which the inconclusive American-British correspondence of 1916 in regard to “hovering” is included.

38 “A belligerent has the right of visit and search on and over the high seas and on or over territorial waters that are not neutral.” Draft Convention on Neutrality, Art. 49 (1), loc. cit., p. 530. Art. 1 of the Havana Convention on Maritime Neutrality of 1928 is similar. Ibid.

39 Hart, A. B., The Monroe Doctrine, an Interpretation (Boston, 1916), p. 70 Google Scholar; Wright, Q., “The Distinction between Legal and Political Questions with especial reference to the Monroe Doctrine,Proceedings, American Society of International Law, 1924, p. 61 Google Scholar; supra,note 32.

40 Potter, P. B., The Freedom of the Seas (London, 1924), p. 57 Google Scholar ff.

41 See Eugene Staley, World Economy in Transition (New York, 1939); Hans Speier and Alfred Kahler, War in Our Time (New York, 1939), especially Chaps. 5 and 6; Toynbee, Arnold J., A Study of History, (1939), Vol. 4, p. 133 Google Scholar ff.