Neutral Port Research Articles

Study of Superconducting System Under Hydrogen Demand for Carbon Neutral Port

Study of Superconducting System Under Hydrogen Demand for Carbon Neutral Port

A “Whirlpool of Gain”

The thousands of aristocratic emigrants from revolutionary France who found asylum in the independent German city city-state of Hamburg and the neighboring Danish city of Altona were not the only immigrants arriving in the neutral ports. Alongside these flamboyant newcomers, merchants, scholars, artisans, and others continued, as they had for decades, to come in pursuit of the economic opportunities denied them at home. With harbors on the Elbe River just downstream from the North Sea, the two cosmopolitan port cities flourished as wars and revolution roiled the rest of Europe. Diplomatically neutral and open to trade, these two cities opened their doors to newcomers from around the world. Over the decade, the aristocrats, who thought themselves cosmopolitan, tested their welcome in the prosperous ports with no native nobility. While most of the newcomers assimilated readily, contributing to the ports’ prosperity, the aristocrats left to reclaim what remained of their estates.

New possibilities for climate change countermeasures in ports: Organic carbon containment and creation of blue carbon ecosystems through beneficial utilization of dredged soil

As climate change has attracted increasing global attention, carbon neutral ports (CNPs) have been set as government policies in Japan. In this research, with the aim of providing a more reliable basis for policy making concerning ports, we proposed the carbon storage through stable containment of organic carbon present in dredged soil as a new climate change countermeasure in ports. Furthermore, it was revealed through scenario analysis that the containment effect through beneficial utilization of dredged soil as foundation materials for blue carbon ecosystems (BCEs) and carbon storage by BCEs have significant meanings for the realization of CNPs and sinks for the residual emissions, considering the necessity to promote dredging projects for the development of the next generation of import bases toward the realization of CNPs, which may result in the generation of a large amount of dredged soil. In a country like Japan, whose port policies and port governance make it difficult to actively promote climate change countermeasures by each port, the feasibility of these new countermeasures would depend on the government’s initiative. It would be a world-leading effort to focus on port development in addition to port operation, and utilizing the dredged soil and BCEs as carbon sinks.

Lincoln’s Trident: The West Gulf Blockading Squadron During the Civil War by Robert M. Browning Jr.

Reviewed by: Lincoln’s Trident: The West Gulf Blockading Squadron During the Civil War by Robert M. Browning Jr. Samuel Negus Lincoln’s Trident: The West Gulf Blockading Squadron During the Civil War. By Robert M. Browning Jr. (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2015. Pp. xii, 700. $69.95, ISBN 978-0-8173-1846-8.) Robert M. Browning Jr.’s new book completes a planned trilogy chronicling in meticulous detail the Civil War service of the U.S. Navy’s three most [End Page 683] important deepwater commands: the blockading squadrons of the South Atlantic, the North Atlantic, and now the West Gulf. David Glasgow Farragut presided over the West Gulf squadron for all but eight of its forty-two months of existence, from its formation in January 1862 until November 1864. The long tenure of his command imbued the entire squadron with Farragut’s own resourcefulness, diligence, and relentless determination to pursue the enemy. Perhaps no action better reflects these traits or so impacted the course of the war as the capture of New Orleans on May 1, 1862. In a week of intense river-borne fighting, Farragut’s squadron, led by his foster brother David Dixon Porter’s mortar-boat fleet, bombarded its way past Forts Jackson and St. Philip, forcing the surrender of the Confederacy’s second city “without a siege that would have cost lives, time, and resources” (p. 111). Most remarkable, the squadron achieved this feat before acquiring a true navy yard for supply and repair anywhere within its field of operation. With an unsurpassed mastery of technical detail, Browning describes the logistical challenges entailed in blockading a thousand-mile coastline from St. Andrew’s Bay, Florida, to the mouth of the Rio Grande on the Texas coast. He charts the events of this campaign with an eye to points as fine as the relative inefficiency of refueling cruisers at sea in order to keep them on station, which required coaling vessels to retain a third of their cargo in ballast for stability. International law presented another set of constraints. U.S. courts expanded the doctrine of continuous voyage, condemning numerous neutral-flagged vessels seized for shipping cargoes from neutral ports in the Caribbean into Texas via Mexico. Despite these extended powers, the squadron remained “powerless to stop legal trade coming to Matamoros” (p. 408). Browning finds that of the at least 800,000 bales of cotton imported to New York during the Civil War, a significant portion came from the South. While it had little strategic impact on the wider war, this trade in the West Gulf so frustrated squadron commanders that they perpetually tested the limits of belligerent rights and thereby “continually flirted with creating a foreign crisis” (p. 514). The squadron provided more decisive service in offensive operations against Confederate coastal positions, including the battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864, where Farragut reputedly uttered his infamous order for Captain James Alden of the USS Brooklyn to “Go ahead, sir, d—n the torpedoes” (p. 451). Browning describes every action of even the slightest significance in elegant yet unforced prose, vividly capturing both the minute detail and the overall spirit of events. His account is punctuated with illuminating character sketches of the most important actors. The magisterial breadth and thoroughness of Browning’s narrative reflects more than a decade of research in the private papers of individual participants, the published Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies, Navy Department records in the National Archives, and a host of other archival resources. The University of Alabama Press has produced a volume of the highest quality, including nine helpful maps of the Gulf Coast, making Lincoln’s Trident: The West Gulf Blockading Squadron During the Civil War an essential resource for any serious researcher or library interested in Civil War naval history. Though it is a dense and often technical work not [End Page 684] easily accessible to neophytes, it is an engagingly written and informative treasure trove. Samuel Negus Hillsdale College Copyright © 2016 The Southern Historical Association

From the motorways of the sea to the green corridors' carbon footprint: the case of a port in Spain

Green corridors are a European concept denoting long-distance freight transport corridors where advanced technology and co-modality are used to achieve energy efficiency and reduce environmental impact. Green corridors consider all types of agents acting in the door-to-door co-modality chains, including ports. Carbon footprints (CF) provide companies, customers and other agents with information related to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the supply chain of products, identifying key points, potential risks and opportunities for improvement. Its application in both the logistic networks and all modes of transport would allow for the creation of green corridors and sustainable motorways of the sea. This paper describes the method which is composed of financial accounts (MC3) used to estimate the CF of a port. It shows the effects of the method on the Port of Gijón (PAG), which steers the existing Gijón/Nantes/Saint-Nazaire motorway of the sea. The extension of the system to all nodes of the shipping line and other transport modes will lead in the long run to a carbon-neutral green corridor. Our findings show the importance of looking at indirect emissions in order to become a carbon neutral port.

Trading With the Enemy: British Business and the Law During the First World War

At the onset of the First World War, the British government banned trade and instituted a naval blockade against the German empire, thus declaring limited economic warfare on the basis of “business as usual.” Soon allegations were swirling in Whitehall and in the press that certain businessmen were flouting the Trading With the Enemy laws, trading indirectly with Germany through neutral ports. Moreover, Unionist backbenchers in parliament complained that German companies were permitted under British law to operate in the United Kingdom, subject to restrictions on their profits. Because of potential harm to British economic interests and because important officials and ministers, particularly in the Board of Trade, remained sympathetic to prewar, laissez-faire attitudes, the government was reluctant in the early years of the war to apply a strict definition of the blockade against Germany. Accordingly, the courts moved tentatively against suspect businessmen; by 1916, however, the government was forced by public pressure, resulting from the growing intensity of total war and hatred of the enemy, to adopt severe measures against businesses operating in the United Kingdom with alleged German connections. The result was the radical Trading with the Enemy (Amendment) Act of January 1916 — the true end of business as usual — which authorized the Board of Trade to wind-up or confiscate British companies suspected of German affiliation. By the end of the war, 583 such companies, great and small, were wound-up, the majority under the Asquith coalition government. The 1916 law was driven by commercial envy, dating from the prewar period, as well as by the state of war that existed between Britain and Germany. British business’s experience with the blockade and the Trading with the Enemy laws in the midst of total war confirms the decline both of laissez-faire and of traditional international business customs and practices to an extent unforeseen in 1914.

Preclusive Purchases: Politics and Economic Warfare in France during the First World War

URING the First World War, the French gradually developed a blockade policy aimed at the economic destruction of their Central Power opponents. Only gradually, and especially in retrospect, did they recognize that their wartime blockade policy had really been a programme of economic warfare-offensive economic measures designed to reinforce the more orthodox military tactics. Economic warfare procedures included those British maritime measures designed to keep overseas imports away from enemy or border neutral ports. They also encompassed such diplomatic blockade tactics as import consignment to private neutral societies, import rationing, and Allied preclusive purchases of neutral domestic products. A preclusive purchase involved a foreign buying operation whose primary objective was deprivation of the enemy rather than the satisfaction of the purchaser's domestic needs. Thus, hypothetically, goods which were totally useless to the buyer could be bought so as to keep them out of enemy hands. Generally, however, supply and preclusive purposes were not mutually exclusive. Implicit in the concept of preclusive buying was governmental rather than private initiative. Only the government could make the type of overall policy decisions which would waive normal financial considerations in the interest of wartime objectives. Clearly, private enterprises were guided by profit motives and thus sought to secure the most advantageous terms of sale. The government could weigh such normal commercial considerations as comparative product prices and transportation costs against denial to the enemy of key goods and hence a potential shortening of the war. It also could take into -account alternative uses for the same funds and decide whether a given outlay could be spent most usefully on a preclusive purchase, such as Dutch meat, or on an essential war material. It was also necessary to evaluate the effect of deprivation on the German economy and war-making potential and to ascertain whether Germany could procure the same goods or viable substitutes elsewhere. Such purchases could disrupt normal procurement patterns, since goods would be removed from markets to which the enemy had access (generally the neighbouring neutrals) rather than from those (generally overseas) where British maritime mastery made German activity almost impossible. Competition with Germany in neutral markets inevitably drove prices above world competitive levels and thus such operations could only be justified in long-range military rather than short-range financial terms. Since funds were not unlimited, a decision to implement a costly preclusive purchase meant that those funds would not be available for other wartime needs. The cost of fighting the war clearly exceeded many times over the expense of any given

The Niritos.

Warfare at sea — Prize law — Indemnities and damages — Detention of neutral ship carrying contraband — Whether prolonged detention justified by rights of maritime prize and visit — Compensation for unduly prolonged detention — The law of France.Warfare at sea — Contraband — Carriage of contraband and doctrine of continuous voyage — Detention of neutral ship travelling to neutral port from which goods could be sent to enemy — Whether prolonged detention justified by rights of maritime prize and visit — The law of France.Warfare at sea — Visit, search and capture — Of neutral merchantmen — Detention of ship carrying suspected contraband — Whether prolonged detention justified by rights of maritime prize and visit — The law of France.

Zadeh v. United States.

Belligerent Occupation — Respect for Private Property — Cancelling or Imposing of Mortgages by Occupant — Invalidity of.Belligerent Occupation — Respect for Private Property — Cancelling or Imposing of Mortgages by Occupant — Invalidity of.State Responsibility — Claims — In General — Indemnity Agreement — Requisitioning of Vessel in Time of War — Vessel in Neutral Port — Requisition on Behalf of Another Government — Liability of Agent Government — The Law of the United States of America.

The Hesperus.

Prize Law — Conditional Contraband — Immediate Destination to Neutral Port — “Continuous Voyage” — Ultimate Destination to Private Consignees — Methods of Proof.

M. Export Co. v. D.D. Co.

Enemy Character — Of Goods — In Neutral Port — Bills of Lading to Order in Blank — Relevance of Possession of Documents — The Law of Germany.

The Reality of International Law

THE City of Flinty flying the American flag, sailing from New York to England, was captured in October 1939 by a German warship and taken by a German crew to a neutral port. The case raised serious questions involving the interests of Great Powers. As this article is written, the four governments concerned ? the United States, Germany, Norway and Russia ? have been arguing the case not in terms of force or power, but on principles of law ? international Throughout modern history, similar cases have arisen on the high seas over and again, and for three hundred years governments have habitu ally argued them on the basis of the applicable rules of interna tional For three hundred years, belligerents have habitually established prize courts to adjudicate the lawfulness of such captures. The Belgian court, dealing with a World War case, remarked that although it has not been codified, law is nevertheless governed by certain essential and precise rules. A Prize Court must o? course deal judicially with all questions which come before it for determination, said the Judicial Com mittee of the British Privy Council in Great Britain in 1916. . the law which the Prize Court is to administer is not the national law, but the law of nations ? in other words, in ternational law. Search the published records of governments and you find them full of questions and answers about problems of international

International Law. Detention of Neutral Vessel Bound for Neutral Port. International Law Rights in the Court of Claims

International Law. Detention of Neutral Vessel Bound for Neutral Port. International Law Rights in the Court of Claims

The Use of Neutral Waters by Belligerents

During the past century great progress has been made in international law along two lines: (1) in the extension of the practice of international arbitration, and (2) in the development of a clearer conception of the rights and duties of neutrals. Both movements tend toward peace, the one in avoiding war by the judicial determination of the matter in dispute, and the other in limiting the area of warlike operations after war has actually been declared and in restricting hostilities to the original parties to the dispute. The Hague Peace Conference of 1899 marked the formal adoption by the nations of the earth of the principle of arbitration of certain classes of disputes, but this conference felt that its work was incomplete so long as there was such wide divergence of opinion as to the rights and duties of neutrals. Before adjournment, therefore, a resolution, was passed expressing the hope that this subject might be taken under consideration by a second conference in the near future. In President Roosevelt's proposal for a second conference, issued by Secretary Hay, October 21, 1904, this is one of the three subjects suggested for consideration, and special attention is called to one aspect of it, namely, “the treatment due to refugee belligerent ships in neutral ports.” This aspect of the subject derives special importance from the events of the Russo-Japanese War, and it is to this aspect of the subject that this discussion will be directed.