Page 293 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

BRITISH-SAUDI CONTROVERSY OVER BURAIMI 231
imposing upon him a boundary line drawn on the basis of former
Turkish possessions in Arabia between 1871 and 1913.1
Consequently, if it is assumed that Saudi Arabia has not succeeded
to these conventions from Turkey two questions arise: First, whether
she can be bound by them on the ground of her recognition of, or
adherence to, them on a date subsequent to their conclusion or
ratification. Secondly, whether she has, at a time prior to the con­
clusion of the conventions, acknowledged some sort of Turkish
suzerainty. These will be considered in turn.
The question of recognition or adherence by Saudi Arabia to the Con­
ventions
It is agreed that ‘treaties are binding only between the contracting
parties’.2 And in the words of Oppenheim,
According to the principle pacta tertiis nec noccnt nec prosunt, a treaty
concerns the contracting States only; neither rights nor duties, as a rule,
arise under the treaty for third States which are not parties to the treaty.3
On the other hand, third States which ‘may be interested in such
treaties', are free, in certain cases, to subscribe to them either by
voluntary adherence or recognition.4 In the light of these principles,
it can be stated that if Saudi Arabia has, directly or indirectly, recog­
nised the above conventions, then she could be bound by them. The
attitude of the Saudi Arabian Government towards these conventions
will be examined below.
It is contended by Saudi Arabia that she had no knowledge what­
soever of these conventions before 1934, and that the first occasion
on which the British Government officially informed her of the exist­
ence of the agreements was marked by the Note dispatched on
28 April 1934 by the British Minister at Jiddah, Sir Andrew Ryan, to
the Saudi Arabian Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Fuad Bey
Hamzah. This Note prompted a reply from the Saudi Arabian
Government rejecting the validity of these conventions.5 There appears
to be nothing in the diplomatic correspondence—from 1934 to 1954—
between the British and the Saudi Governments, as revealed in the
Saudi Memorial presented to the Geneva Arbitration Tribunal in
1 See Saudi Memorial, I, pp. 397-8. And see ibid., p. 399, where it is maintained
that the British Government was estopped from its claim on the basis of the Blue
Line by theTreaty of Darin of 26 December 1915, in which it recognised Ibn Sa’ud’s
succession to territories which belonged to ‘his fathers before him’. For the Anglo-
Saudi Treaty of 1915, now superseded by the 1927 treaty, see Aitchison, pp. 206-8.
a Schwarzenberger, p. 176. 3 Oppenheim, pp. 925-6.
4 Oppenheim, p. 933. For differences between adherence to treaties and recogni­
tion of treaties, see Schwarzenberger, p. 131.
6 See above, p. 198.