Abstract

What Is Sea Law?

The effect of the so-called peace pact upon the U.S. and the League, and the difficulties thereby added to the clarification of the law at sea in time of war, are already becoming apparent. The confusion of Senators on the general subject of codification of the sea law is not less disturbing. It is well known that Great Britain during the war adopted certain practices in direct violation of international law which effectively wiped out the time-honored rights of neutrals to trade with other neutrals and even with belligerents. The so-called "blockade" was no blockade at all, and Britain during the war did not claim that it was a lawful blockade, She merely asserted that it was a reprisal for the German submarine campaign, whereas Germany defended the submarine as a reprisal for the illegal "blockade."