Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law

Edouard Dubufe

The Paris Declaration respecting Maritime Law of 16 April 1856 was an international multilateral treaty agreed to by the warring parties in the

Congress at Paris after the peace treaty of Paris had been signed in March 1856. As an important juridical novelty in international law the treaty for the first time created the possibility for nations that were not involved in the establishment of the agreement and did not sign, to become a party by acceding the declaration afterwards.^[1]

So did altogether 55 nations, which otherwise would have been impossible in such a short period. This represented a large step in the globalisation of international law.

The primary goal of France and Great Britain was to abolish

letters of marque to seize enemy vessels. By disrupting commerce, privateers could be effective against enemies that depended on trade and force them to deploy their warships to protect their merchant ships. In this way, maritime nations could wage war against larger land-based powers by the destruction of their commerce. The Paris Declaration established international policies related to neutral and belligerent shipping on the high seas, introducing new rules for prizes of war, a piece of enemy property seized by a belligerent party during or after a war or battle, typically at sea.^[2] The plenipotentiaries agreed on three major points: free ships make free goods, effective blockade, and no privateering. In return for surrendering the practice of seizing neutral goods on enemy ships, France insisted on Britain's abandoning its Rule of 1756 prohibiting neutral assumption of enemy coastal and colonial trade.^[3]

History

To put an end to the

letters of marque, which they actually had not done during the war. At the close of this war the principal states of Europe concluded that private armed ships, maintained at private cost for private gain, and often necessarily for a long time beyond the reach of the regular naval force of the state, could not be kept under proper control. With the agreements written down in the Declaration of Paris these rules were confirmed and added to them the principle that blockades

, in order to be obligatory, must be effective.

The Declaration did not as such make privateers into a new category of international criminals, but rather made it a treaty obligation of states that they refrain from commissioning privateers in the first place. Most states normally treated foreign privateers as

pirates

in any case. In the plain wordings of the Declaration:

Privateering is and remains abolished;

The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war;

Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under enemy's flag;

Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective-that is to say, maintained by a forge sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy.[5]

The Declaration has been signed by Great Britain, Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia and Turkey Ultimately, 55 states, royal houses and free cities ratified the Declaration, including the Ottoman Empire.^[6] This treaty established maritime law among the major powers of Europe. It represented the first multilateral attempt to codify in times of peace rules which were to be applicable in the event of war. This declaration bound only its signatories and nations that did accede later, when at war with each other, and left them free to use privateers when at war with other states.

Position of the United States

The United States, which aimed at a complete exemption of non-contraband private property from capture at sea, withheld its formal adherence in 1857 when its “

China, Venezuela, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Honduras, and El Salvador.^[6]

In 1861, during the American Civil War, the United States declared that it would respect the principles of the declaration during hostilities. The Confederacy agreed to the provisions except for the right of privateering,^[8] and went on to extensively employ privateers as blockade runners. During the Spanish–American War of 1898, when the United States Government affirmed its policy of conducting hostilities in conformity with the dispositions of the declaration. Spain too, though not a party, declared its intention to abide by the declaration, but it expressly gave notice that it reserved its right to issue letters of marque. At the same time both belligerents organized services of auxiliary cruisers composed of merchant ships under the command of naval officers.

Some of the questions raised by this declaration were clarified by the

1907 Hague Convention

.

The rules contained in this declaration later came to be considered as part of the general principles of international law and the United States too, though not formally a party, abides by provisions.^[1]