‘The Uncertainty that Persists’: The Bank of France, the Baltic Gold and the Non-Recognition of a Forcible Seizure of Territory during the Cold War

Abstract

After the USSR annexed the Baltic states in 1940, the Bank of France refused to transfer Baltic gold reserves to Moscow and preserved them until the reestablishment of Baltic independence in 1991. This decision resulted from a slow but deep change in the conduct of international relations, namely the post-WWI effort to outlaw the use of force in international relations. By refusing to recognise Soviet rights over Baltic gold, France embraced the slowly emerging principle of ex injuria jus non oritur (‘law does not arise from injustice’) that was at the heart of Stimson doctrine (1932) and the Briand-Kellogg Pact (1928). To better understand the changes taking place on the macro-level (state conduct dealing with territorial change created by force), this article zooms on the level of domestic institutional actors and their ways of dealing with the Baltic problem in their daily practice. It explains how the French position regarding the Baltic question was negotiated between various institutional actors such as the French presidency, the Treasury, Foreign Ministry and the Bank of France. I argue that the key element shaping French policy towards the Baltic gold issue was the institutional self-protection logic of the Bank of France.