The origins of the concept of belligerent occupation

Law and History Review

Volumn 26, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 621-648

  Benvenisti, Eyal ^a  

^a TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY   (Israel)

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EID: 62249107329     PISSN: 07382480     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0738248000002595     Document Type: Article

References (72)

1. See, in general, Eyal Benvenisti, The International Law of Occupation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993)
2. Adam Roberts, "What Is a Military Occupation" 1984 British Year Book of International Law 55 (1985): 249
3. As Oppenheim wrote in 1905, "The distinction between mere temporary military occupation of territory, on the one hand, and, on the other, real acquisition of territory though conquest and subjugation, became more and more apparent, since Vattel had drawn attention to it. However, it was not till long after the Napoleonic wars in the nineteenth century that the consequences of this distinctions were carried out to their full extent by the theory and practice of International Law." Lassa Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise, 1st ed. (London: Longmans, Green, 1905), 2:168
4. Scholars like to portray the Peace of Westphalia (1648) as the birth of the idea of sovereignty. But as Derek Croxton shows, the concept of sovereignty remained vague and contested for centuries, reflecting the evolving balance of power in Europe. See Derek Croxton, "The Peace of Westphalia of 1648 and the Origins of Sovereignty," International History Review 21 (1999): 569
5. Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis (The Rights of War and Peace) (1625), bk. 3, chap. 11, paras. 9, 10
6. Vattel, The Law of Nations, at para. 200
7. On the emerging distinction during that period between the conqueror's rights vis-à-vis the former ruler and its more limited authority over the indigenous population, see also Sharon Korman, The Right of Conquest (New York: Clarendon Press, 1996): 29-40
8. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, trans. G. D. H. Cole (1762), bk. 14 ("War then is a relation, not between man and man, but between State and State, and individuals are enemies only accidentally, not as men, nor even as citizens, but as soldiers; not as members of their country, but as its defenders")
9. J. C. Bluntschli, Das Beuterecht im Krieg und das Seebeuterecht Inbesondere: Eine Völkerrechtliche Untersuchung (Nördlingen: C. H. Beck, 1878), 60
10. "C'est le rapport des choses et non des personnes, qui constitue la guerre; elle est une relation d'État à État, et non d'individu à individu." Cited by August Wilhelm Heffter, Das Europäische Völkerrecht der Gegenwart (Berlin: E. H. Schroeder, 1844), at para. 119, n. 3
11. "On the basis of the principle that war is not a relationship between men but a relationship between states, in which individuals are enemies only by coincidence . . . the law of nations does not permit the right of war and the right of conquest that is derived from it, to affect peaceful and unarmed [enemy] citizens." Cited by Heffter, Das Europäische Völkerrecht, at para. 119, n. 3. Note that Talleyrand does not restrict the right of conquest. This message found succinct expression in the famous statement of King William of Prussia on August 11, 1870, as the Prussian Army invaded France: "I conduct war with the French soldiers, not with the French citizens."
12. Cited by Heffter, Das Europäische Völkerrecht, at para. 119, n. 3
13. Bluntschli, Das Beuterecht, at 64-69, described the French military criminal codes of 1793 and 1796, which prohibited pillage and other takings of private property, the 1845 Prussian criminal statute, which prohibited unauthorized acts against enemy combatants and civilians, and the German military criminal statute of 1872, which prohibited "unauthorized" pillage and plunder; and, of course, there was the so-called Lieber Code of 1863 (see below note 95 and accompanying text)
14. The Rousseau-Portalis Doctrine was considered to be reflected in the Hague Regulations of 1899 and 1907. See Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944), 79
15. The Constitution of 3 September 1791, Title II ("Of the Division of the Kingdom and of the Status of Citizens")
16. On the evolution of guerrilla warfare in Europe in the early nineteenth century and its legal implications, see Francis Lieber, Guerrilla Parties (New York: Nostrand, 1862)
17. Gregory H. Fox, "The Occupation of Iraq," Georgetown Journal of International Law 36 (2005): 195-297, 199
18. J. H. W. Verzijl, in his International Law in Historical Perspective (Leyden: Sijthoff, 1978), 9-A: 152, reproduces the French Decree of 15/17 December 1792, which promised to export the French ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity to occupied countries, which, in turn, would thereby achieve sovereignty and self-determination
19. See Nehal Bhuta, "The Antinomies of Transformative Occupation," European Journal of International Law 16 (2005): 733 ("The revolutionary government in France renounced the right of conquest, and offered instead 'fraternity' with peoples who rejected the dynastic principle of legitimacy in favour of popular sovereignty")
20. Thomas Baty, "The Relations of Invaders to Insurgents," Yale Law Journal 36 (1927): 974-77 ("When the French in 1792 invaded Italy, they had no scruple in summoning the invaded populations to repudiate all allegiance to their sovereigns. . . . Nys may tell us that the French generals 'limited themselves' to breaking the ties between invaded peoples and their princes and to convoking assemblies to determine the form of government")
21. Paul Challine, Le droit international public dans la jurisprudence française de 1789 à 1848 (Paris: Domat-Montchrestien, 1934): 116. Challine also noted the Decree of 15/17 December 1792 (see above, note 31), which provided, inter alia, that it was not necessary to sign a treaty of cession to effect sovereignty change when the people situated in the occupied area, being the sovereign there, had manifested their wish to be reunited with France
22. Edgar Löning reported on an early decision of the Paris Cour de cassation from 23 Frimaire year V, which determined that a French area occupied by an enemy was no longer to be considered part of France. Edgar Löning, Die Verwaltung des General-Gouvernements im Elsaß (Strassburg: K. J. Trübner, 1874), 27, n. 1
23. Henry W. Halleck, International Law (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1861), 775 and following
24. Halleck, International Law, 782 (quoting Ortolan's Diplomatie de la Mer)
25. "L'occupation temporaire de cette colonie par la Puissance anglaise n'a pu porter aucune attainte aux droits de la France ni changer le caractére de sa possession sur la Martinique, possession momenanément suspendue par l'effet de la conquête, mais qui n'a pas cessé quant au droit d'être régie par la loi française." Charles Rousseau, Le droit des conflits armés (Paris: Pedone, 1983), 136-37 (citing the French Cour de cassation decision of February 1, 1837, Magill v. Héritiers Monnel-Gonnier)
26. According to Schulze, "notice nécrologique," Annuaire de l'institut de droit international 5 (1882): 25-40, Heffter (1796-1880) was influenced by French law and culture while serving as a young professor in Bonn. When he later moved to Berlin, he came to be influenced by his friend Eduard Gans, who had been Hegel's student. In fact it was Gans who suggested to Heffter that he write the 1844 book. Heffter also served as a consultant to governments and as a high-ranking judge. According to one commentator, his dual role kept him from pushing his ideas forward and from seeing through the chrysalis of the modern state (ibid., 38)
27. Heffter, Das Europäische Völkerrecht, 220-21 : "Der eindringende Feind tritt nicht sofort durch die bloße Besitzgreifung des anderseitigen Gebietes oder eines Theiles desselben an die Stelle der bisherigen Staatsgewalt, so lange der letztern noch eine Fortsetzung des Krieges, mithin auch eine Umkehr des Kriegsglückes ist . . . . eine vollkommene Subjugation des eingedrungenen Feindes in die Staatsgewalt des Andern, vermag juristisch nicht sofort gefolgert zu werden."
28. On Fiore's (1837-1914) humanitarian-liberal philosophy and his approach to the study of international law, see Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001): 54-57
29. Pasquale Fiore, Nuovo dritto internationale pubblico (Milan: Casa Ed. e Tip. degli autori-ed, 1865), 177 ("[S]econdo I nostri principii essendo le nazioni tutte eguali ed autonome, ed avendo l'egual dritto di sovranità nel loro territorio, non possono soggiacere al dritto della forza, nè le loro terre possono passare nel domino del vincitore se questo arbitrariamente e violentemente le avesse occupate")
30. Pasquale Fiore, Nouveau droit international public, trans. Charles Antoine, 2nd ed., (Paris: Durand, 1885), vol. 3
31. Calvo, Le droit international, vol. 4, para. 2181 (p. 220). See above, note 56
32. This should not be surprising, given the European view at the time that international law encompassed relations only among "civilized nations." See Oppenheim, International Law, 1:31 (the family of civilized nations has the discretion to consent to the entry of a new member based on the family's assessment of the new entrant's being a "civilized State which [wa]s in constant intercourse with members of the Family of Nations"). On the law of occupation as a European project, see also Bhuta, "The Antinomies of Transformative Occupation."
33. Halleck, International Law, 784: "[F]oreign territory becomes a dominion, and its inhabitants the subjects of the king, ipso facto, by the conquest made by the British arms, without any action of the legislature."
34. For a critical assessment of these occupations, see Baty, "The Relations of Invaders to Insurgents," 974-77
35. Bhuta, "The Antinomies of Transformative Occupation," 729
36. It would not be surprising to learn that the British government was, in principle, not very enthusiastic about the European efforts to codify the laws of war on land during the nineteenth century. It opposed the Russian idea of convening the conference in Brussels, initially rejecting the invitation to participate. Later, after receiving proper assurances, the British government instructed its delegate to monitor the negotiations without taking an active part. See Fedor F. de Martens, La paix et la guerre, trans. N. de Sancé (Paris: A. Rousseau, 1901), 106-9
37. On this doctrine, see also William Birkhimer, Military Government and Martial Law, 3rd ed. (Kansas City, Mo: F. Hudson, 1914), 54-58
38. Betsy Röben, Johann Caspar Bluntschli, Francis Lieber und das moderne Völkerrecht, 1861-1881 (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2003)
39. Betsy Baker Röben, "The Method behind Bluntschli's 'Modern' International Law," Journal of the History of International Law 4 (2002): 249
40. Röben, Bhmtschli, at 67-68
41. Lieber was born in Germany in 1800. He moved to the United States in 1827. See G. Rolin-Jaequemyns, "François Lieber," Revue de Droit international et de legislation comparée 4 (1872): 700-705
42. In the Preface to the 1866 French edition, Heffter noted the success of his earlier versions. The book had been favorably mentioned by American, British, and Russian authors and translated into Greek, Russian, and Polish. It was subsequently translated also into Japanese and Spanish (see Preface of the 8th German edition by Geffken, 1888)
43. Röben, Bluntschli, at 69-70
44. See also Silja Vöneky, "Der Lieber's Code und die Wurzeln des modernen Kriegsvölkerrecht," Zeitschrift fur Ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 62 (2002): 424-60
45. The same rationale applied to the so-called insular cases, where the Supreme Court asserted that the U.S. Constitution does not automatically extend to areas (such as Hawaii, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico) that have come under American control. See, e.g., DeLima v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 1 (1901), Goetze v. United States, 182 U.S. 221 (1901)
46. The Netherlands Case, above note 71 (describing American practice until ratifying the 1907 Hague Regulations). The incorporation of Hawaii in 1898 is a case in point
47. Von Glahn presented this case as a departure from the British approach. See Gerhard von Glahn, The Occupation of Enemy Territory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1957), 7
48. Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field (Lieber Code), 24 April 1863
49. Lieber Code, Art. 3: "Martial Law in a hostile country consists in the suspension, by the occupying military authority, of the criminal and civil law, and of the domestic administration and government in the occupied place or territory, and in the substitution of military rule and force for the same, as well as in the dictation of general laws, as far as military necessity requires this suspension, substitution, or dictation." According to Robert J. Futrell, "Federal Military Government in the South, 1861-1865," Military Affairs 15.4 (1951): 190-91, the Lieber Code was interpreted by the Union's various military governments to allow them considerable latitude
50. The Federal military governors "assumed a broad direction of Southern civil affairs." These governors issued orders to protect public order and public health, regulated, inter alia, the sale of liquor and gambling, organized local militias, introduced new taxes, and, in general, "made themselves masters of the Southern population." The secretary of war of the Confederate states criticized the Code for allowing the military governors unfettered discretion under the concept of "military necessity" (cited in Doris Appel Graber, The Development of the Law of Belligerent Occupation, 1863-1914 [New York: Columbia University Press, 1949], 17-18)
51. John Basset Moore, A Digest of International Law (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906), 7:273
52. Löning, Die Verwaltung, 13-15
53. G. Rolin-Jaequemyns, "Chronique du droit international," Revue de Droit international et de legislation comparée 2 (1870): 645, at 691. Bordwell mentions a forth district
54. See Percy Bordwell, The Law of War between Belligerents (Chicago: Callaghan, 1908), 98
55. Rolin-Jaequemyns, "Chronique du droit international."
56. Coleman Phillipson, Alsace-Lorraine, Past, Present and Future (London: T. F. Unwin, 1918), 155
57. Graber, Development of the Law, 268-70
58. Declaration of 30 August 1870. "[C]es territories se touvent, par ce fait même, soustraits à la souveraineté imperiale, en lieu et place de laquelle est établie l'autorité des puisances allemandes." Quoted in A. Lorriot, De la nature de l'occupation de guerre (Paris: Lavauzelle, 1903): 76-77
59. See Koskenniemi, Gentle Civilizer, 13-15
60. G. Rolin-Jaequemyns, "Essai complémentaire sur la guerre franco-allemande dans ses rapports avec le droit international," Revue de droit international et de legislation comparée 3 (1871): 335
61. A. de Montluc, "Le droit de conquête," Revue de droit international et de legislation comparée 5 (1873): 581
62. André Merquiol, Les occupations étrangères en France au XIXme siècle (Nice: Imprimerie de "L'Eclaireur de Nice," 1944): 51-53
63. Phillipson, Alsace-Lorraine, at 145-47, cites German writers who, although writing generally about the illegitimacy of conquest, stated that Germany's demand to annex Alsace-Lorraine was not a conquest, but, rather, a "restoration" or a response to earlier French provocations
64. G. Rolin-Jaequemyns, "Note," Revue de droit international et de legislation comparée 5 (1873): 588, 589. Among these considerations, he mentioned the historic and ethnic ties of the population in the ceded territory and evident considerations of security
65. Jean De Breucker, "La Declaration de Bruxelles de 1874 concernant les lois et coutumes de la Guerre," Chronique de Politique Étrangère 27 (1974): 22 (noting that the parties to the Brussels negotiations could not deny the validity of Heffter's distinction between occupation and conquest)
66. Article 1: L'occupation par l'ennemi d'une partie du territoire de l'État en guerre avec lui y suspend, par le fait même, l'authorité du pouvoir legal de ce dernier et y substitute l'authorité du pouvoir militaire de l'État occupant. See Annuaire de l'institut de droit international 1 (1877): 277, 278
67. This distinction between general recognition of the principle and the details implied by the principle for an occupation regime is reflected in the description of the project to assess the Brussels text undertaken by the Institut de droit international. See Session de La Haye (1875), IDI Examen de la Déclaration de Bruxelles de 1874 (Rapporteur: M. Gustave Rolin-Jaequemyns) (rep. in http://www.idi-iil.org/idiF/resolutionsF/1875-haye- 02-fr.pdf). The project was to focus on the implications of the fact that occupation is a provisional regime: "VI. Les dispositions du projet de Déclaration relatives à l'occupation du territoire ennemi sont l'application de ce principe vrai: que le seul fait de l'occupation ne confère aucun droit de souveraineté, mais que la cessation de la résistance locale et la retraite du gouvernement national, d'une part, la présence de l'armée envahissante, de l'autre, créent pour celle-ci et pour le gouvernement qu'elle représente un ensemble de droits et d'obligations essentiellement provisoires. Le projet tend surtout, dans cet ordre d'idées, à tracer les limites de ces droits, et à déterminer ces obligations, dictées par la nécessité de maintenir l'ordre social et de protéger la sécurité individuelle et la propriété privée, en l'absence momentanée de tout gouvernement régulier."
68. Project of an International Declaration concerning the Laws and Customs of War. Brussels, 27 August 1874, Articles 2 and 3 (http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/ FULL/135OpenDocument)
69. Fedor de Martens, Traité de droit international, trans. Alfred Leo (Paris: Marescq, 1877), 3:257: "L'occupation prend un autre aspect quand elle n'a pas un caractère temporaire et qu'elle a lieu en vue d'une annexion, ou si le but même la guerre est de changer ou d'améliorer l'organisation d'une province appurtenant àl'ennemi. Dans ce cas, la puissance, qui procède à une annexion, a tout à fait le droit de transformer complètement les institutions régnantes et l'ordre établi, afin de les mettre en harmonie avec ses interérêts politiques, ou afin de procurer quelque avantage aux habitants." ("The occupation acquires a different aspect when it is not of a temporary nature but instead annexation is envisioned or the aim of the war itself was to change or ameliorate the organization of a province belonging to the enemy. In this case, the power that executes annexation has the right to transform the ruling institutions and establish order, so as to harmonize them with its political interests or to procure some advantage for the inhabitants.") de Martens, La paix et la guerre, at 267-96
70. de Lapradelle, "La conference de la paix," Revue générale de Droit International Public 6 (1899): 736-38
71. On the modes of unilateral acquisition of non-Christian territories, see Korman, Conquest, at 42-66
72. As Chief Justice Marshal observed with respect to the rights asserted by the Europeans concerning the New World (Johnson and Graham's Lessee v. M'Intosh, 21 U.S. 543, 572-73 [1823]), "On the discovery of this immense continent, the great nations of Europe were eager to appropriate to themselves so much of it as they could respectively acquire. Its vast extent offered an ample field to the ambition and enterprise of all; and the character and religion of its inhabitants afforded an apology for considering them as a people over whom the superior genius of Europe might claim an ascendancy. The potentates of the old world found no difficulty in convincing themselves that they made ample compensation to the inhabitants of the new, by bestowing on them civilization and Christianity, in exchange for unlimited independence. But, as they were all in pursuit of nearly the same object, it was necessary, in order to avoid conflicting settlements, and consequent war with each other, to establish a principle, which all should acknowledge as the law by which the right of acquisition, which they all asserted, should be regulated as between themselves. This principle was, that discovery gave title to the government by whose subjects, or by whose authority, it was made, against all other European governments, which title might be consummated by possession. The exclusion of all other Europeans, necessarily gave to the nation making the discovery the sole right of acquiring the soil from the natives, and establishing settlements upon it. It was a right with which no Europeans could interfere. It was a right which all asserted for themselves, and to the assertion of which, by others, all assented. Those relations which were to exist between the discoverer and the natives, were to be regulated by themselves. The rights thus acquired being exclusive, no other power could interpose between them."