3.5 Contentious Jurisdiction — The Prescribed Cases

3.5.1 Corfu Channel (United Kingdom v. Albania, 1949) Facts: British warships struck mines in the Corfu Strait (Albanian waters) — deaths and damage; Britain swept the channel (Operation Retail) without Albania's consent, seizing the mines as evidence. Held: (i) Albania responsible — the knowledge-based responsibility: the laying in a monitored strait, the previous incidents, and the notice-failure made Albania's ignorance incredible; Albania owed the UK compensation; (ii) the UK's sweeping operation violated Albanian sovereignty — the forcible self-help intervention inadmissible (the intervention doctrine's classic: no state may use force to collect evidence or enforce claims outside the Charter's ways). The principles: every state's obligation not to allow knowingly its territory to be used against others; the elementary considerations of humanity; the rejection of forcible self-help. 3.5.2 Asylum (Colombia v. Peru, 1950) Facts: the Peruvian political leader Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, sought for rebellion, took refuge in the Colombian embassy in Lima; Colombia granted diplomatic asylum and demanded safe conduct out of the country; Peru refused and disputed the asylum's legality. Held: Colombia could not establish a right to grant asylum unilaterally (the unilateral qualification of the offence — the asylum state deciding the crime is "political" — binds no territorial state): no rule of international law (general or regional-American) conferred it; and Peru was under no obligation to…