Unit 5: Blockade — Concept of Blockade; Legal Effects of Blockade; Validity of Blockade
1. Concept of Blockade
Blockade is a belligerent operation of war by which a state prevents all access (by sea) to the enemy’s coast or a part of it — for the purpose of interrupting commerce and severing the enemy’s external supply — declared and notified, effective where established. The law’s home: the ** Declaration of Paris 1856 (the privateering abolition and neutral goods’ protection matrix), the Hague Conventions (especially XIII, 1907) and the London Declaration 1909 (blockade’s fullest codification — never ratified in force but the customs’ evidence). Blockade is a belligerent right against neutrals’ trade (Unit 3’s collision point: the neutral’s commerce freedom vs. the belligerent’s war right); its land cousin (the siege) and its modern analogues (the sanctions “blockades” of the embargo era — Unit 8’s compulsive-measures family; the “pacific blockade” of the 19th century — force-short-of-war’s museum piece).
2. Legal Effects of Blockade
- On neutral ships: a vessel knowingly attempting to enter or leave a blockaded area is capturable (condemnable with cargo in prize — Unit 6’s procedure); the liability attaches from notification and effectiveness (the vessel’s knowledge presumed by the declared-and-notified blockade);
- On the voyage’s continuity: breach of blockade as the continuous-voyage doctrine’s second home (Unit 6 — the ultimate destination test applied to blockade-runners);
- On the cargo: condemnation’s rule — the ship’s breach taints the goods (the owner’s innocence no defence in the classical law, mitigated by the insurance realities); contraband analysis runs alongside (Unit 6);
- On the belligerent: the duty of effective enforcement (paper blockades void — below), of notification (to neutrals and the local authorities), of impartiality within the blockade’s area (no neutral-favouring exceptions), and the visiting-and-search proportionality (Hague XIII’s restraints on force against neutral vessels);
- On third states: the neutral flag’s rights preserved short of breach; the neutral state’s duty of non-recognition of an invalid blockade and of protesting its commerce’s interferences.
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