A Victorian Embarrassment: Consular Jurisdiction and the Evils of Extraterritoriality

In 1856, the Treaty of Paris nominally welcomed the Ottoman Empire into the Concert of Europe, but this exposed a deep fault line in international relations. Although the gesture implied full sovereign rights, it seemed incompatible with the extraterritorial privileges held by Europeans in Ottoman lands under the age-old capitulations. New commercial treaties complicated the issue by extending similar privileges to British subjects as far afield as China, Siam and Japan. Consular jurisdiction soon became the focus of controversy in Westminster as extraterritoriality featured prominently in local disputes following British commercial expansion across Asia, among them the Arrow incident that led to the Second Opium War. In Japan and other states, it would also become a key grievance in popular campaigns against ‘unequal treaties’ and the injustices of informal empire. This analysis shows how, even before such narratives of resistance emerged, there was already a seam of ambivalence in Victorian political discourse on the question of extraterritoriality. In the Foreign Office, it came as no surprise to be told of defects in these treaties, but it was the context of the existing debate, notably fresh initiatives to set up mixed courts, that framed the British response.     

The ICC pre-trial chamber decision on jurisdiction over the situation in Myanmar

The transfer and deportation of ethnically Rohingya people from Myanmar into Bangladesh is a crime against humanity demanding an international response. What role, however, should the International Criminal Court (ICC) play? On 6 September 2018 an ICC Pre-Trial Chamber ruled that the Court has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute such crimes as they are completed on the territory of a State party, Bangladesh. Myanmar is not a party to ICC Statute and has invoked the principle that treaties do not bind third parties without their consent. The case put in this commentary is that while the Pre-Trial Chamber’s approach to the law was arguable as an interpretation of the ICC Statute, it was unwise as a matter of policy. The argument is threefold. First, the Pre-Trial Chamber’s ruling is as a matter of legal method only the first-move in a process of norm-creation and persuasion. Second, it does not follow that because territorial jurisdiction in international law includes ‘objective’ jurisdiction over transboundary acts completed on a State’s territory that such jurisdiction was delegated by member States to the ICC in all cases. Finally, it is argued that international criminal tribunals do not succeed when the cooperation of necessary territorial governments (here, Myanmar) is withheld. Proceeding in this case risks becoming a quagmire of the ICC’s own creation at a time when it can little afford further risks to its legitimacy.     

民国时期边疆政区的内地化——以磴口设县为例

今内蒙古自治区巴彦淖尔市所辖磴口县位于河套平原西部,地处西北农牧交错带,清代属阿拉善王爷的封地。由于该地便利的沿黄灌溉和黄河水运条件,晚清以来天主教会以此地为中心,通过开垦土地、修建灌渠、招徕陕甘等地汉族贫苦农民等方式,在磴口地区建立起天主教社会。发展至民国时期,伴随着汉族移民逐渐聚集,甘肃省及由甘肃分出的宁夏省都试图延续清政府“蒙人归旗、汉人归县”的以属人管理为原则的政策,将政治势力伸展至磴口,并建立县治。在磴口地区行政区划设置中的政治角逐和利权争夺,一方面反映了民国时期中央政府的边疆政策;另一方面体现了边疆地区不同人群、不同立场的各种势力对政区设置的影响。     

浅谈"解决投资争议国际中心"管辖权问题

“解决投资争议国际中心”仲裁机构诞生以来,以其特有的优越性,在国际社会中日益受到重视,在解决国家作为一方当事人的投资争议中,大有取代一般国际商事仲裁的趋势.我国已于1992年正式加入《盛顿公约》,从而也可以利用该仲裁机制.为了更好地利用其为我国服务,我们有必要对其加以研完,其中,管辖权问题作为其运行的基石,更应是我们研究的重点.     

Impersonating a Voter: Constructions of Race,and Conceptions of Subjecthood in the Franchise of Colonial New South Wales,c. 1850–1865

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the treatment of Aboriginal Australians as politically entitled subjects within New South Wales during that colony's first elections under ‘universal’ male suffrage. Using the case of Yellow Jimmy, a ‘half-caste’ resident prosecuted for impersonating a white settler at an election in 1859, it examines the uncertainties that surrounded Aboriginal Australians’ position as British subjects within the colony's first constitutions. By contrast to the early colonial franchises of New Zealand and the Cape – where questions of indigenous residents’ access to enfranchisement dominated discussions of the colonies’ early constitutions – in the rare instances in which indigenous men claimed their right to vote in New South Wales, local officials used their own discretion in determining whether they held the political entitlements of British subjects. This formed a continuity with the earlier treatment of Aboriginal Australians under settler law, where British authority and imperial jurisdiction was often advanced ‘on-the-ground’ via jurists and administrators rather than via the statutes or orders of Parliament or the Colonial Office.     

ALGONQUIN NOTIONS OF JURISDICTION: INSERTING INDIGENOUS VOICES INTO LEGAL SPACES

ABSTRACT. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal notions of geography, nature and space sometimes compete, and these differences can create barriers to joint environmental problem-solving. This paper examines the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation and Allies (AAFNA) and the strategies they used in juridical and legislative settings to make their voices heard. In the Tay River Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal (2000–2002), AAFNA attempted to introduced their knowledge of the environmental deterioration which would be caused by a Permit To Take Water issued to a multinational corporation by the Ontario Ministry of Environment. The paper is divided into two parts: first, it describes the concepts of Algonquin knowledge, jurisdiction and responsibility; second, it explores the strategies used to integrate their perspective into legal proceedings constructed by the Canadian government. This case reveals how some Algonquin people conceive of space and responsibility in deeply ecological, rather than narrowly juridical, terms. It establishes that their broad concepts of knowledge, land and jurisdiction are incompatible with existing Euro-Canadian divisions of legal responsibility and ecological knowledge, but at the same time can serve as the means by which they challenge the current structure of Aboriginal and Canadian relations.     

The South China Sea dispute and the Philippines Arbitration Tribunal: China's policy options

The Philippines Arbitration Tribunal separately dealing with the jurisdiction over the South China Sea dispute is the continuance of the set practice by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea's Annex VII arbitral tribunals of bifurcation of proceedings, and was the best option for it to deal with China's objections to its jurisdiction in the circumstance of China's non-acceptance of and non-participation in the arbitral proceedings. Such a measure has potentially important implications for the tribunal itself and for China. The tribunal's decision to have jurisdiction over some parts of the Philippines’ submissions resumed the merits proceedings of the dispute. This development of the proceedings would force China to reconsider its current policy of non-participation. Participation in the subsequent merits proceedings might be the right choice for China.     

David Meetom: Interpreting,Power and the Risks of Intermediation in the Initial Phase of German Colonial Rule in Cameroon

ABSTRACT

David Meetom, a Duala subchief, was an important interpreter in the coastal region of Cameroon at the beginning of German rule, which was shaped by colonial officials’ lack of language skills, the colonial state’s low level of institutionalisation, its necessity to rely on intermediaries, and tensions within Duala society. In this circumstances, new opportunities opened up to those who had knowledge of a colonial language. The article examines Meetom’s actions as an interpreter, broker and intermediary between colonial and African languages, authorities and interests. It covers his actions from his informal participation in negotiations between African and German authorities, to his work as official government interpreter, to a trial in which he was accused of having exceeded his authority before finally being shot fleeing German authorities. For Meetom, the consequences of his intermediary position veered between being personally advantageous and disadvantageous. His work held potential for conflict, both with the colonial government and with the Duala or other African groups in the region. Meetom’s life serves to illustrate how interpreters facilitated and controlled contact between colonisers and Africans and proves the distinction between the colonisers and the colonised which underlay the concept of colonial rule as having been surprisingly fragile.     

明代安庆、徽州地区兵备道分合演变考论

兵备道是明代重要的地方管理制度。为了对付“江贼”“矿贼”和倭寇的侵扰,加强地方屯田、水利等事务的管理,明廷在弘治至嘉靖年间相继设立凤阳、九江、太仓、应天和徽饶五个兵备道,其辖区范围均兼及安庆、徽州地区。兵备道对该地区的管辖单元,也有一个从卫逐渐转变为府的过程。隆庆六年,出于统一事权的考虑,明廷设立徽宁兵备道,将安庆、徽州地区的府卫纳入同一兵备道管理之下,并维持在南直隶的辖区范围内,不再跨省。后因地方形势的变化,为使兵备道在军事上占据有利位置,明廷又对徽宁兵备道进行了几次分化和调整。兵备道的分合演变,显示出其在安庆、徽州地区地方治理的重要性,并为清代安徽省的形成奠定基础。