Some Phases of the Law of Blockade

Abstract

Although the development of international law has tended more and more to confine the operations of war to such as are directed against the armed forces of the belligerents and to relieve the peaceful population from their immediate effects, nevertheless a number of practices employed principally for the purpose of bringing economic pressure to bear upon the general mass of enemy non-combatants, still survive in full vigor and are well recognized as legitimate. One of the most important of this class of operations is blockade. The end of blockade is to cut off trade and intercourse with specified ports or with a specified coast line in possession of the enemy.

Naval Blockade

“…This is the so called "close-in blockade", 27 and France often supported this view. 28 Secondly, there were those who merely required that the patrol was sufficiently close by -perhaps patrolling up and down the coastline -in order to make entry into the blockaded port or coastline risky. 29 This view was held by the British.…”

“…Although "there is little doubt that the principle was directed against the British doctrine that blockades could be established by cruiser squadrons", 33 the statement is indefinite and provides little help in identifying what would be necessary to "really […] prevent" the said access. 34 A more lax formulation, found in British prize law, is that "the force must be sufficient to render the capture of vessels attempting to go in or come out most probable". 35 Here, "[t]he distance of the blockading vessels from the shore was determined by considerations of naval tactics rather than by some preordained or preconceived theory of law."…”