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150 THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE ARABIAN GULF STATES
of such a rule. It is true, however, that in one French ease, that of
SeyyiclAli Den Hamod, 1916,1 the French court approved, in principle,
the sovereign immunity of an ex-Sultan of Zanzibar, a ruler of a
former British protectorate, from its jurisdiction. But apart from the
fact that it is not clear from this decision whether the French court
relied on a certificate from the executive, this seems to be an isolated
decision which cannot be taken as a basis of a general rule of law.
It is therefore very difficult to establish, in the light of the above dis­
cussion, that breach of the sovereign immunity of any of the Rulers
i of the Gulf Shaikhdoms before non-British courts is breach of inter­
national law. With regard to the position of the Sultan of Muscat
: before foreign courts, it may be possible to say that breach of his
;
: sovereign immunity before the court of a State that has already
recognised him as a sovereign could lead to breach of international
law. But it is, perhaps, doubtful whether there exists a legal duty on
the courts of those States which have not recognised the Sultan as an
independent sovereign to extend to him sovereign immunities, in
accordance with the rules of customary international law.
1
1 Wiercinski v. Seyyid Ali Ben Hamod, 1916, Journal du Droit International,
XLIV (1917), p. 1465, quoted by Allen, op. cit., p. 157. In this case, the ex-Sultan
of Zanzibar was sued for the payment of a bill for medical treatment. However,
although the court decided that the Sultan was entitled, in his capacity as a foreign
sovereign, to jurisdictional immunity, it nevertheless treated the case as an excep­
tion to the rule on the ground that, in accordance with the provisions of the Code
civil, the Sultan ‘acted in his own personal interests’. As is known, European courts
generally differentiate between jure imperii acts and jure gestionis acts. They grant
immunity to foreign sovereigns only in respect of claims involving jure imperii
acts of such sovereigns. Therefore, all the personal activities of the foreign sovereigns
v Law, 2 (1920), pp. 252 et seq.
which come within the provisions of the Code civil, and to which the expression jure
gestionis applies, are excluded from the application to them of sovereign immunity.
For details on the practices of European courts in this matter, sec Hamson, C. J.,
‘Immunity of Foreign States, the Practice of the French Courts’, B.Y.I.L., 27
(1950), pp. 293 et seq.; Walton, F. P., ‘States Immunity in the Laws of England,
France, Italy and Belgium’, Journal of Comparative Legislation and International