Volume Ii Part 30 (1/2)

532-547--Nordon in _The Law Magazine and Review_, x.x.xII. (1907), pp. 166-188. See also the literature quoted above, vol. I., at the commencement of -- 286.

[Sidenote: Uncertainty of Rules concerning Interference with Submarine Telegraph Cables.]

-- 214. As the ”International Convention[426] for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables” of 1884 expressly stipulates by article 15 that freedom of action is reserved to belligerents, the question is not settled how far belligerents are ent.i.tled to interfere with submarine telegraph cables. The only conventional rule concerning this question is article 54 of the Hague Regulations, inserted by the Second Peace Conference, which enacts that submarine cables connecting occupied enemy territory with a neutral territory shall not be seized or destroyed, and that, if a case of absolute necessity has compelled the occupant to seize or destroy such cable, it must be restored after the conclusion of peace and indemnities paid. There is no rule in existence which deals with other possible cases of seizure and destruction.

[Footnote 426: See above, vol. I. ---- 286 and 287.]

The Inst.i.tute of International Law has studied the matter and adopted,[427] at its meeting at Brussels in 1902, the following five rules:--

(1) Le cable sousmarin reliant deux territoires neutres est inviolable.

(2) Le cable reliant les territoires de deux belligerants ou deux parties du territoire d'un des belligerants peut etre coupe partout, excepte dans la mer territoriale et dans les eaux neutralisees dependant d'un territoire neutre.

(3) Le cable reliant un territoire neutre au territoire d'un des belligerants ne peut en aucun cas etre coupe dans la mer territoriale ou dans les eaux neutralisees dependant d'un territoire neutre. En haute mer, ce cable ne peut etre coupe que s'il y a blocus effectif et dans les limites de la ligne du blocus, sauf retabliss.e.m.e.nt du cable dans le plus bref delai possible. Le cable peut toujours etre coupe sur le territoire et dans la mer territoriale dependant d'un territoire ennemi jusqu'a d'une distance de trois milles marins de la laisse de ba.s.se-maree.

(4) Il est entendu que la liberte de l'etat neutre de transmettre des depeches n'implique pas la faculte d'en user ou d'en permettre l'usage manifestement pour preter a.s.sistance a l'un des belligerants.

(5) En ce qui concerne l'application des regles precedentes, il n'y a de difference a etablir ni entre les cables d'etat et les cables appartenant a des particuliers, ni entre les cables de propriete ennemie et ceux qui sont de propriete neutre.

[Footnote 427: See _Annuaire_, XIX. (1902), p. 331.]

The U.S. Naval War Code, article 5, laid down the following rules:--

(1) Submarine telegraphic cables between points in the territory of an enemy, or between the territory of the United States and that of an enemy, are subject to such treatment as the necessities of war may require.

(2) Submarine telegraphic cables between the territory of an enemy and neutral territory may be interrupted within the territorial jurisdiction of the enemy.

(3) Submarine telegraphic cables between two neutral territories shall be held inviolable and free from interruption.[428]

[Footnote 428: It is impossible for a treatise to discuss the details of the absolutely unsettled question as to how far belligerents may interfere with submarine telegraph cables. Readers who take a particular interest in it may be referred to the excellent monograph of Scholz, _Krieg und Seekabel_ (1904), which discusses the matter thoroughly and ably.]

CHAPTER V

NON-HOSTILE RELATIONS OF BELLIGERENTS

I

ON NON-HOSTILE RELATIONS IN GENERAL BETWEEN BELLIGERENTS

Grotius, III. c. 19--Pufendorf, VIII. c. 7, ---- 1-2--Bynkershoek, _Quaest. jur. publ._ I. c. 1--Vattel, III. ---- 174-175--Hall, -- 189--Lawrence, -- 210--Phillimore, III. -- 97--Halleck, I. pp.

310-311--Taylor, -- 508--Wheaton, -- 399--Bluntschli, -- 679--Heffter, -- 141--Lueder in Holtzendorff, IV. pp.

525-527--Ullmann, -- 185--Bonfils, Nos. 1237-1238--Despagnet, No.

555--Pradier-Fodere, VII. Nos. 2882-2887--Rivier, II. p.

367--Calvo, IV. ---- 2411-2412--Fiore, III. No. 1482, and Code, Nos.

1721-1723--Martens, II. -- 127--Longuet, ---- 134-135--Merignhac, pp.

218-220--Pillet, pp. 355-356--_Kriegsbrauch_, p. 38--_Land Warfare_, ---- 221-223--Emanuel, _Les conventions militaires dans la guerre continentale_ (1904).