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43 Transactions Year 111 (1957)
The Use of Force in the Protection of Nationals

handle is hein.journals/trygs43 and id is 141 raw text is: THE USE OF FORCE IN THE PROTECTION OF NATIONALS 1 By D. W. BOWETT, Esq., M.A., LL.B., Ph.D. Lecturer in Law in the University of Manchester (Read before the Society on 6th Feb. 1957) Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice, K.C.M.G., Q.C. in the Chair There is no doubt that, under traditional international law, a state had the right to use force or the threat of force in order to protect the lives and property of its nationals abroad where the territorial state had failed to afford adequate protection against acts of violence.2 In the arbitration between Great Britain and Spain in 1925, one of the series known as the Spanish Moroccan Claims, Judge Huber, as rapporteur of the commission stated: However, it cannot be denied that at a certain point the interest of a state in exercising protection over its nationals and their property can take precedence over territorial sovereignty, despite the absence of any conventional provisions. This right of inter- vention has been claimed by all states; only its limits are dis- puted.3 Action of this nature, involving as it did a prima facie viola- tion of the territorial inviolability of another state, was necessarily exceptional in character and could only be justified on the basis ,The following abbreviations will be used: Am. J-American Journal of International Law; UNRIAA-United Nations Reports of International Arbitral Awards; R.C.-Recueil des cours de l'Acad6mie de la Haye; R.G.D.I.P.-Revue G6ndrale de Droit International Public; I.L.Q.-Inter- national Law Quarterly; Ven. Arb.-Ralston and Doyle, Venezuelan Arbi- trations of 1903; B.Y.I.L.-British Yearbook of International Law; Cam- bridge L.J.-Cambridge Law Journal. 2 Borchard, Diplomatic Protection of Citizens Abroad (1916); Dunn, Protection of Nationals (1932); Leval, De La Protection des Nationaux Sl'Etranger (1907); Pittard, Protection des Nationaux (1896); Moore, American Diplomacy (1905), p. 131; Oppenheim, International Law, 1, 8th Ed., p. 309; Jessup, Modern Law of Nations (1948) p. 169. 3 Anglo-Spanish Arbitrations, Beni-Madan, Rzini Claim (1925), UNRIAA, Vol. II, p. 616.

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