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Neutrality and Prize Law : Legal Arguments c1650-1800 Professor Steve Murdoch

Neutrality and Prize Law : Legal Arguments c1650-1800 Professor Steve Murdoch University of St Andrews Professor Leos Muller Stockholms universitet. Four Types of Maritime Warfare or Violence at Sea

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Neutrality and Prize Law : Legal Arguments c1650-1800 Professor Steve Murdoch

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  1. Neutrality and Prize Law: Legal Arguments c1650-1800 Professor Steve Murdoch University of St Andrews Professor Leos Muller Stockholms universitet

  2. Four Types of Maritime Warfare or Violence at Sea Crown Warfare – war declared by the monarch, regent or appropriate authority. Sanctioned by most bi-lateral treaties. Civilian ships taken under Guerre de Course Letters of Marque – warfare conducted by private men-of-war on behalf of the state and authorised by the Lord High Admiral or his deputy. Sanctioned by international maritime law and treaties Letters of Reprisal – this is a carefully regulated practice which allows an individual who has been wronged by an individual to recoup their loss by allowing them to seize goods belonging to the city, state or kingdom to whom his tormentor belonged. Sanctioned by international maritime law and treaties Piracy – unregulated violence at sea which occasionally resulted in warfare. Internationally condemned.

  3. Scots Maritime Law Regarding Neutrals Balfour’s Practicks, 1583

  4. Hugo Grotius: The Law of War and Peace, 1625 ‘Of Neutars in War’

  5. TNA HCA 30/4 Sentence of the Andrew of Gothenburg, 29 November 1652 Warfare at Sea Warfare at Sea

  6. “No merchants, captains and masters of ships [engaged] for any public service, or expedition of war, or any other cause, much less for any private use, be seized, embarked, arrested, forced by violence, or be any other way molested or injured.” Clause ‘V’ Treaty of Whitehall, 1661

  7. “Iff they be carying any of the goods prohibited mentionat in the said comissione or proclamatione to any of the king of Spaine or to any other of his Maj enemies their territories or dominiones or to any of the ships being upon the Sea or returning therein the same voyage having vented or dislogit any of the said forbidden goods or having in aboord any goods or merchandise pertaineing to any of his Maj enemyes” Letter of Marque, 1628

  8. List of Neutral Ships Claimed by Swedish Subjects, 1694

  9. Freedom of sea (mare liberum) • Freedom of trade – natural law of sociability • Peace, not war, as a natural state of human society • Ship a territory under legislation of neutral state – idea of international prize court

  10. The Five Principles of Neutrality, 1780 (1) The right of neutral ships to navigate freely between belligerents’ ports and coasts (2) The commodities of belligerents on board neutral ships were free and legal, with the exception of war contraband (3) The definition of war contraband should be explicit and Britain should not include any other commodities in its definition than France did (4) Neutrals should respect blockade of a belligerent’s coast BUT only if the blockade was effective! (5) The principles cited should be made public and serve as guidance for all privateers

  11. Annual averages of eastward and westward voyages in the Danish Sound per decade, 1661-1783

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