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International Administration of European Inland Waterways

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2017

Louis B. Wehle
Louis B. Wehle*
Affiliation:
Of the New York Bar
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Extract

Gaius and Charlemagne and President Truman seem to be working hand in hand across the centuries to bring about coördination of European inland waterways. Under the law of the Roman Empire such waterways, when constituting or crossing international boundaries, were free to use by all nations within the Empire. Since 1815, as we shall presently see, there have been successive organized attempts, mostly unsuccessful, to revive and apply this principle of freedom of navigation of the Roman Law on the Rhine, the Danube, and elsewhere. The United States, through President Truman, at the July–August Berlin (Potsdam) conference of the victorious allies, proposed that navigation over the internal waterways of Continental Europe be free to all nations under international control. More recently, in the latter weeks of 1945, grave obstacles and problems threaten the realization of the Truman proposal. The writer believes that if we visualize clearly the mechanism and workings of an international body vested with control of inland river navigation, we can better appraise the merits of that proposal.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , January 1946 , pp. 100 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © by the American Society of International Law 1946

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References

1 Little original historical research on the old and middle background facts is presented here. This has already been done by two experts of the first rank: Joseph P. Chamberlain of Columbia University marshalled American and foreign sources so well in 1923 in his The Regime of the International Rivers: Danube and Rhine, that we can dispense with any repetition of his citations, and Brigadier-General Sir Osborne Mance’s International River and Canal Transport, issued under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs as one of its series on International Transport and Communications, in 1944, brings developments in Europe and elsewhere more or less up-to-date, beside carrying a classified bibliography and two helpful maps.

2 See The New York Times, August 10, 1945, p. 12.

3 Same, October 10, 1945, p. 1.

4 See The Washington Post, October 27, 1945, p. 1.

5 See The New York Times, October 28, 1945, p. 33.

6 Hyde, C.C, International Law, Boston, 1945 (2d ed.), Vol. I, Sec. 159, p. 524 Google Scholar, and note.

6a Text of Council's report in The New York Times, Dec. 28, 1945, p. 4 Google Scholar.

6b Mance, work cited, pp. 48–51.

7 Same, second map.

8 Foreign Affairs, April 1930, Vol. 8, pp. 470–3.

9 Chamberlain, work cited, pp. 105–10.

10 Mance, pp. 91–4.

11 Berkol, , “Le statut juridique actuel des portes maritime orientales de la Mediterranee” (1940 Google Scholar); de Visscher, Femand, “La Nouvelle Convention des Detroits de Montreux,” Revue de Droit International, 1936, No. 4, pp. 669–718 Google Scholar.

12 See The Washington Post, November 8, 1945, p. 3

13 Hakluyt, Richard, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffigues & Discoveries of the English Nation, Everyman’s Library edition, Vol. IV, pp. 7–8 Google Scholar.

14 De Jure Belli ac Pacis, Classics of International Law edition, p. 196.

15 Work cited, p. 156.

16 Chamberlain, as cited, p. 202.

17 Mance, pp. 66–8.

18 Hackworth, Green H., Digest of International Law, Washington 1940, Vol. I, p. 599 Google Scholar.

19 Mance, p. 57.

20 See, for one view, Grégoire Gafenco, Preliminaires de la Guerre à L’Est, Librairie de VUniversiti, Fribourg (Suisse), 1944, Ch. III, pp. 79–101. The author emphasizes the Commission’s part in protecting the regime against Russian interference.

21 Mance, pp. 62–4.

22 Mance, pp. 47–8 and 69–87; Chamberlain, pp. 285–306.

23 Mance, pp. 24, 61–2, 91.

24 See note 1, above.

25 Hines, Walker D., Report to League of Nations on Danube Navigation, League Document C.444 (a). M.164 (a). 1925. VII, pp. 24–7 Google Scholar.

26 See decision by the Permanent Court of International Justiee, and separate opinions in the Oscar Chinn case, Publications of Permanent Court of International Justice, Series A/B, No. 63; also discussion by Dr. C. C. Hyde cited below, pp. Ill, 112.

27 This Journal, Vol. IV (1910), pp. 145–155 (at pp. 154–5). .

28 See Hackworth, , Vol. I, pp. 599–603 Google Scholar; Permanent Court of International Justice, Publications, Series B, No. 14, pp. 38 ff.; Hudson, M. O., World Court Reports, 1935, p. 140 Google Scholar; P.C.I.J. Publications, Series A, No. 23, p. 25; Series C, No. 17, Pt. II, p. 244; Hudson, p. 611.

29 This thought is mentioned only as a caveat. An instance is Article 1 of the Barcelona Statute which excluded from its operation canals constructed to connect two navigable sections of a river separated by a non-navigable section.

30 Pp. 562, 563, 564.

31 Series A/B, No. 63.

31a P. 112.

32 Pp. 140–1.

33 Series A., No. 23, p. 27.

33a P. 28.

34 We should mention here the European Central Inland Transportation Organization which came into formal existence on September 27,1945, primarily as an emergency body to work with the military for the present in the restoration and coordination of inland traffic movements both on land and by water. The constitution of this organization is reproduced below, in the Supplement, at p. 31. A signatory is bound for two years, or as much longer as its elects. Funds for ECITO’s work are to be contributed by the member governments according to a fixed budget procedure. The body’s charter requires it to conform to any general policy of the United Nations. Presumably its activities would be subordinated to any functions that would be performed by a regime for inland navigation control.

35 Hines, p. 30.

36 See The New York Times, June 13, 1945, p. 16.