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137 SEA BLOCKADE AS a POLITICAL WEAPON by PH. D

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137 SEA BLOCKADE AS a POLITICAL WEAPON by PH. D 137 SEA BLOCKADE AS A POLITICAL WEAPON By PH. D. HELGE GRANFELT The USA blockade of Cuba is a school-example of how interna- tional law and international politics are more or intricately wowen together. It also shows how a small Power, although its sovereignity is usually referred to with esteem, in an earnest situation, however, will be a bat of the great Powers in the struggle for mastery. The small Power and the great but military weak State often trust to the international law to give them some, if not sufficient, but at all events a certain degree of protection against unjustified attacks from a greater State. In certain cases, as happened both before the First and the Second Great War, the small Power joins an alliance of the Great Powers (The Triple alliance contra the Entente, Nato contra the Warschawa pact). The greater State as well as an alliance bloc often uses the inter- national law as a weapon in the struggle for mastery. For the smaller State this law is often the strongest defensive weapon against the aggression of a great Power. In modern times they have relied on the ability of the United Nations and her predecessor, the League of Nations, to prevent aggression. It should be noticed, however, that these political organs have had investigating but not legislative rights. They have neglected the laborious work to develop the international law and which wt- know - as far we can refer to such a law - is filled with gaps and often contains only a collection of rules, conventions and customs. Transforming different spheres of the regular custom right would beyond doubt be a great and worthy task for the United Nations. The blockade is a weapon of international law. In the rules of the United Nations it corresponds to so-called sanctions (a kind of peace blockade). A sea blockade has reference to all sea trading nations - great and small. Here the belligerent Great Power, if it has a superior fleet, must take certain considerations. This has the effect of some, although usually small progress for the international law. 138 The armed neutral alliance of the year 1780 was a success, just because the neutral merchant ships were escorted by war-vessels from several countries, viz except by the small Powers, Denmark and Sweden, also by the great Powers of Russia. In the Napoleon wars, when the English were undisputed masters at sea, they bombarded Copenhagen without warning, took the Danish fleet and precluded the constitution of a new armed neutral alliance. It was not until the Paris congress (1856) that the English agreed to apply certain rules for sea blockade, e.g. that piracy should be abolished, that a neutral flag should protect hostile goods except war contrabands, and that neutral goods under a hostile flag except war contrabands might not be captured. Finally in order to be really effective, the blockade must be legally valid.1) The blockade in the Boer War. The wars which were carried on for the realizing of the Italian and German unity as well as the Russian-Turkish war were land wars, and therefore the sea blockade was not of current interest. But in the Boer War (1899-1902) curi- ously enough it was actualized, although the belligerent Transvaal, fighting with the Sea-Power of England, was not bounded by the sea. The English had heard a rumour - probably spread by such people as wished to excite enmity between England and Germany - that German ships were said to carry contrabands of war to the Boers via Delagoa Bay, which belonged to an adjacent Portuguese colony. These German ships were seized by English men-of-war in the open sea far from the war-front. As there had not been any blockade proclaimed and the ships came from a neutral country, the measure caused a great sensation, above all of course, in Germany and sharp notes were exchanged.2) The exchange of notes has its significance for illustration of the international as well as for the political side of the problem. It is interesting to notice that Salisbury, the English Premier, shortly before declined a proposal of blockade of Delagoa Bay. In a secret memorandum Sir R. Butler proposed a blockade of this Portuguese Bay. He was of the opinion that international law ap- ' peared to admit as possible a blockade without a declaration of war against Portugal. Such a blockade, Salisbury pointed out, was without precedent. It seems to him to be out of the question to assume that neither France nor Germany would submit to have their vessels stopped by a blockade for which there was no warrant in international right .
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