Page 192 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

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130 THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE ARABIAN GULF STATES

I of the protected State to the government of the protected State itself.
He presents the issue thus:
Nevertheless, in a ease involving a protectorate or like entity (these being
the only cases presenting serious difficulties) one must determine whether,
!
■ in addition to enjoying full internal autonomy, the entity in question has
a measure of international personality and whether this personality carries
■
with it the capacity to enter directly into international commitments with
other States. This legal phenomenon, which is to be observed with increasing
frequency in contemporary practice, is of great significance when the issue
to be decided is: To whom should the responsibility be imputed for the
acts or omissions of those semi-sovereign entities.1
7]
It may be deduced from the above quotations that while it seems
possible, from the point of view of municipal law, to allocate responsi­
bility between the agencies of the protecting and the protected State,
1 in international law there is only one State that can be held responsible,
: namely, the protecting State or the State in which, by virtue of its
' nternational status, the responsibility of the protected State merges.2

(b) State practice: The United Kingdom has consistently accepted
-v3 international responsibility for the delinquencies of her protectorates
i and protected States. A dispatch, dated 27 February 1895, by the
Foreign Office to the Law Officers of the Crown contains the follow­
ing principles on the responsibility of the protecting Power:

That all Powers, other than the Protecting Power, are excluded from inter­
ference in the internal affairs of the protected country, and from asserting
by force directly against the Government of the protected State any claims
for redress they may have against it. . . . It is presumed that if any inter­
national wrong is committed against the protected Power redress would be
sought only through the medium of the Protecting Power.3

1 Garcia Amador, op. cit., p. 187.
2 Eaglcton, op. cit., pp. 32-4; Starke, op. cit., p. 117. It is agreed that in the case
of States under suzerainty, their delinquencies are imputable to the suzerain State.
As regards the position of the self-governing dominions of Great Britain, it is said
that ‘each Dominion will accept responsibility for internationally injurious acts
within its jurisdiction’. See Eagleton, p. 35; Lewis, M. M., ‘International Status
of the British Self-Governing Dominions’, B.Y.I.L., 3 (1922-3), p. 21.
3 McNair, Opinions, vol. 1, pp. 58-9. It seems clear that British practice is in
accord with Hall’s statement that where no internal jurisdiction or ‘external
sovereign power’ is assumed by a superior State over a territory, ‘no definite
responsibility consequently is incurred’ by it. See Hall, p. 154 (footnote). The
case of R. E. Brown Claim, 1923, before the Anglo-American Pecuniary Claims
Arbitration of 1923, may be cited as an example of this British practice. In this
case, it was decided that since by the Convention of 1884, the British Government
‘reserved only a qualified control over the relations of the South African Republic
with foreign powers, there were, therefore, no grounds for invoking the interna­
tional responsibility of Great Britain for tortious acts’ of the South African Repub­
lic. For this Award, see B.Y.I.L., 5 (1924), pp. 210-21.