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INTERNATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY 141
were settled.1 According to Cecil Hurst, the principle is defined as
follows:
The person who suffered the injury out of which the claim arose must have
possessed the nationality of the claimant state and not have possessed the
nationality of the respondent state at the time of the occurrence ... at the
time when the claim is submitted to the Commission and continually up
to the date of the award.2
It is clear from a number of arbitral awards that British practice
supports the principle of espousal by the British Government of
claims belonging to British protected persons.3
Presentation of claims on behalf of nationals of the Gulf States: appre­
ciation of such claims in the light of generally accepted principles
It appears that in practice no case has arisen whereby a claim of a
national of a Gulf State against a foreign government has been es­
poused by the British Government. Therefore, it is difficult to predict
the attitude of the British Government towards such a claim should the
occasion arise.
However, there seems no reason to assume that the British Govern­
ment would not espouse claims presented by nationals of the Gulf
States—the Shaikhdoms in particular—against foreign governments.
The basis of British intervention in support of claims advanced by
nationals of these States against foreign governments would be, pro­
vided all the other necessary conditions for the presentation of inter­
national claims were satisfied, that these nationals are, on the same
footing as British nationals, entitled to British diplomatic protection
abroad.4

1 Garcia Amador, op. cit., p. 215; Sinclair, I. M., ‘Nationality of Claims:
British Practice’, B. 27 (1950), pp. 129, 144; Briggs, H. W., The Law of Na­
tions, Cases, Documents and Notes, 2nd cd. (1952), pp. 725-6.
2 Hurst, Sir Cecil J.B., ‘Nationality of Claims’, B. Y.I.L.,7(1927), pp. 163,180-2.
3 For British practice in this matter, sec the following awards: Spanish Zone of
Morocco Claims (Great Britain v. Spain), 27 August 1924, Annual Digest (1923-4),
Case No. 204; National Bank of Egypt v. German Government and Bank fur Handel
und Industrie (before the Anglo-German Mixed Arbitral Tribunal), 31 May 1924,
and National Bank of Egypt v. Austro-Hungarian Bank (before the same tribunal),
13 July 1923, Annual Digest (1923-4), Cases No. 9 and 10. It should be pointed out,
however, that, in the light of the principles enunciated in these cases, the British
Government would not espouse a claim of a British protected person unless the
claimant was a British protected person in the eyes of British municipal law at the
time he suffered the injury giving rise to the claim and continued to be so until the
claim was finally decided. And see, for example, Spanish Zone of Morocco Claims
(Great Britain v. Spain), 29 December 1924, Annual Digest (1923-4), Cases No. 101
and No. 204. In this case the British espousal of the claim was rejected on the ground
that the claimant, a British protected person, voluntarily renounced British pro­
tection before the date of arbitration.
4 For the conditions for the presentation of such claims, see Meron, Theodor,