State Immunity and the Requisition of Ships during the Spanish Civil War: II. Before the Courts of the United States

Abstract

In a previous issue of this JOURNAL the writer has discussed the position of the British courts with respect to the cases which arose out of the requisition of merchant ships during the Spanish Civil War. It was there suggested that the decisions in these cases might throw some light upon the legal situation which would possibly be created as a result of the conflicting claims of rival governments, and of dispossessed owners, to ships which were without the national territory at the time their states of registry were occupied by Axis forces. The courts of the United States were not confronted with such a wide range of problems growing out of the Spanish conflict as were those of Great Britain. This was, perhaps, due in large part to the fact that the United States accorded no recognition to the régime of General Franco prior to recognizing it as the de jure government of all Spain. Questions relative to the status of an insurgent authority recognized as a local de facto government did not, therefore, arise. In one important case, however, legal problems relating to the immunity of foreign public vessels and to the validity of extraterritorial decrees of requisition were fully examined. As Professor Hyde has remarked, the case of The Navemar may not have produced a cause célèbre, but the series of adjudications which it inspired have resulted in the most significant contributions to the law concerning the status of foreign public vessels which have been made by the American courts since the period immediately following the close of the World War.