Page 177 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

THE PRESENT LEGAL POSITION 115
maintain a position of neutrality on their own authority.1 Do the Gulf
States possess such power and if so to what extent can they go to war
independently of the United Kingdom or declare their neutrality in a
war in which the United Kingdom Government is a party?

1. Does a declaration of war on the part of the United Kingdom involve
the Gulf States?

(i) Muscat
As already stated, Muscat is not bound to Great Britain by treaties
of protection. She is an independent State with full international
status and she conducts her own foreign affairs. The British Govern­
ment is not responsible, on the basis of any treaty arrangements, to
defend Muscat against external aggression.2 The right to declare war
or to remain neutral in a universal war or in a war in which the
United Kingdom is a party is part of the prerogatives exercised by
the Sultan in his capacity as the Head of the State of Muscat. Conse­
quently, the Sultan of Muscat is free to exercise such right inde­
pendently of the wishes of the Government of the United Kingdom,
in his earlier treaties with the United Kingdom, the Treaty of Com­
merce of 1839, the Sultan specifically expressed his right to go to war
independently of the Government of the United Kingdom and to be
neutral in a war declared by this Government. Thus Article 13 of this
treaty referred to the respective obligations of the two parties during
a war in which only one of the parties was involved as follows:
If it shall happen that cither the Queen of England or His Highness the
Sultan of Muscat ^hould be at war with another country, the subjects of
Her Britannic Majesty and the subjects of His Highness the Sultan of Muscat
shall nevertheless be allowed to pass such country through the dominions of
either power with merchandize of every description except warlike stores,
but they shall not be allowed to enter any port or place actually blockaded
or besieged.3
The present Treaty of 20 September 1951 between the Sultan and
the United Kingdom contains no provisions similar to the provisions
of the above Article. However, it certainly does not follow from the
absence of such provisions in the Treaty of 1951 that the Sultan has
lost his right to declare himself neutral in a war in which the United
Kingdom is a party.4 There is nothing in his treaties with the United
Kingdom to show that the Sultan has actually surrendered his right
1 Keith, A. B., The Dominions as Sovereign Stares, (1938) p. 46; Bricrly, J., ‘Inter­
national Law and Resort to Armed Force’, Cambridge Law Journal, 4 (1932),
pp. 308, 31-112.
* Sec Chapter 6. 3 Aitchison, p. 296.
4 For the Treaty of 1951, sec above, p. 52. The Sultan can deprive himself of
the right of making war only by surrendering this right by treaty.