Page 6 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

Preface (First Edition)

An examination in systematic and comprehensive form of the inter­
national legal problems of the Arabian Gulf scarcely requires justifica­
tion or introduction. The political and economic importance of the
area is self-evident; while the rate of political, economic and social
a change is very great. The evolution into full independence of the
protected State of Kuwait and the arrangements connected with it
seem to indicate the future pattern of British legal relations with the
remaining Shaikhdoms which are today being prepared, in varying
degrees, for the assumption of greater responsibilities in their foreign
! relations.1
1 international legal problems which arise in relation to the area is wide.
Moreover, as the pages of this volume will show, the range of
] It stretches from those examined in the first two parts of the book,
which involve primarily questions of the legal and international status
J of the Arabian Gulf States, to those, examined in the last two parts
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r-J which involve issues connected with territorial and boundary claims
in the Gulf.
m made to canvass all these matters within a single volume. There are,
So far as I have been able to discover, no previous attempt has been
of course, pioneer works such as Aitchison’s Collection of Treaties,
Engagements and Sanads, of which the eleventh volume relates to the
Arabian Gulf, but this is no more than its title indicates, namely, a
i collection of treaty texts, prefaced by short, though valuable, historical
is notes. Lorimer’s Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf te essentially a historical
work. But in terms of analysis of the international legal problems, no
effort appears previously to have been made in English or, for that
matter, it would seem, in any other language, to discuss the various
juridical difficulties of the whole area in a connected form.
Yet, as will be readily appreciated, even the present work has some
limitations to it—of breadth as well as of depth. As regards breadth,
although it may perhaps be felt that I have in any case already spread
my net too wide, I have nevertheless excluded certain specific items,
of which the problems of British foreign jurisdiction in the Gulf and
of the relations of the Shaikhdoms with the foreign oil companies in
the area are the most significant.2 And as regards depth, I have
1 It is regretted, however, that these Shaikhdoms still lack the attributes of
democratic governments.
* Although these problems, which do not, in fact, exclusively belong to the field
of public international law, were dealt with in the Ph.D. thesis, which formed
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