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PREFACE
attempted to find a middle way through the conflicting considerations
that, on the one hand, this is not a general textbook of international
law and, on the other, that an assessment of the special problems of the
Arabian Gulf unavoidably calls for at least some description of the
general part of the law to which they are related.
The sources relied upon vary from one chapter to another. When
necessary, they are explained in full in the footnotes. In general, their
nature may be briefly summarised as follows:
In the first part of this study, containing a consideration of British
treaty relations with the Gulf States, the sources are, essentially, based
on the official records of the Government of British India kept in the
India Office (now known as the Commonwealth Office). Aitchison’s
Treaties and Lorimer’s Gazetteer are the two main publications con­
taining these materials. Although these constitute the printed part
of the official records of the India Office, they, nevertheless, still
retain their importance as original records on the Arabian Gulf
region. Indeed, until a few years ago Lorimer’s Gazetteer was included
among the list of books referred to by the Foreign Office as ‘Secret*.
As regards the other parts of the study, the following are some of
the main original sources which have been consulted:
(a) Unpublished papers of the Public Record Office of the Foreign
Office, in connection with the consideration of the historical and legal
basis of the Iranian claim to Bahrain.
(b) Published official records of the India Office, based on the
Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government and Lorimer’s
work, in relation to the consideration of the historical aspect of the
Saudi Arabian claim to Buraimi. I have also been able to see both
the British and Saudi Arabian pleadings in the abortive Buraimi
arbitration.
(c) Official records of the General Assembly and the Security
Council of the United Nations, in relation to the examination of the
position of the Arabian Gulf States within the framework of the
United Nations.
I am deeply grateful to Mr E. Lauterpacht, Fellow of Trinity
College, Cambridge, under whose guidance and encouragement this
work was completed. I am also grateful to Professor B. A. Wortley,
of the University of Manchester, and Dr C. Parry, Fellow of Downing
College, Cambridge, who were kind enough to criticise this work and

the basis of this work, it was not felt appropriate to include them in this book
which, as its title indicates, is limited to the discussion of issues connected with
the application of international law. The thesis, submitted for the Ph.D. degree in
International Law in the University of Cambridge, was entitled ‘Legal Problems
of the Persian Gulf States’.