Talk:Corfu Channel case

Notes on sources

Despite being cited all over the place, Gardiner is not likely to be a useful source (either for the case or the incident), except perhaps as a discussion of the British reaction to either. Everything's from a pretty blatantly British (or at least anti-Albanian) POV. Some of the paragraphs from early in the chapter on the ICJ case, however, are quite good... two in particular seem to encapsulate the feeling of frustration that surely was present in the British public in response to the case taking so long to reach a conclusion. Otherwise, sadly, it seems to have been pretty well a wasted trip to the library. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 01:55, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Something that might be worth sticking in further reading, or maybe on the Japanese Wikipedia version? Najima, K. (1958). "コルフ海峡事件と無害航行権に関する今日的省察" (PDF). 経営と経済 (in Japanese). 38 (1): 71–86. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help) Wish I could read it. Probably gives some interesting relationship to straits in the far east that would be relevant to the impact discussion. If I had an indication that the author was somebody significant I'd probably stick it in further reading. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:42, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

And here's a couple of sources in French. I figure some of these ought to be good for balancing the pro-English viewpoints that many of the sources give without needing to find someone who can read Albanian. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 02:36, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

• Verzijl, J. H. W. (1955). "Sept années de jurisprudence de la Cour Internationale de Justice". Netherlands International Law Review. 2 (2): 127–147. doi:10.1017/S0165070X00034616. ISSN 0165-070X.
• Thouvenin, Jean-Marc (2006). "La Saisine De La Cour Internationale De Justice En Cas De Violation Des Règles Fondamentales De L'ordre Juridique International". In Tomuschat, Christian; Thouvenin, Jean-Marc (eds.). The Fundamental Rules of the International Legal Order: Jus Cogens and Obligations Erga Omnes. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff. pp. 311–334. ISBN 978-9-047-41782-8.

Factual inferences

Reed, Lucy (March 2012). "Confronting Complexities in Fact-Finding and the Nature of Investor-State Arbitration". American Society of International Law Proceedings. 106: 233–237. This source talks about the (mis)use of Corfu Channel in arbitration between investors and States, where investors argue for a liberal drawing of inferences against the State, citing Bayindir v. Pakistan and Rumeli v. Kazakhstan as two examples where it's been done. Very short article, but might provide an interesting starting point for a new subsection in the legacy section. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 06:58, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Clarifications

I'm starting to go through these, and they're excellent points. With respect to the "intelligence-gathering activities" sentence, I'm inclined to just drop the latter clause (I think I'd just taken it from the Corfu Channel incident article when I initially wanted to just give a summary style overview of the incident. I don't think the fact of the Royal Navy doing intelligence-gathering in the Corfu Channel is particularly relevant for the case, but the fact that they regularly transited the channel was significant at least in the arguments. I'll try to find a citation and explain it a bit more.

The cable to fleet command... if I recall correctly (I need to check my sources), that was from the Foreign Office. Again, it was a bit of trying to be abbreviated... but the orders that the cable stimulated (XCU, which are mentioned further down) were a matter of significant contention in the case. I'm also just considering dumping the sentence. It might flow better without. Hmm.

The shore batteries took no action, and the ships took no action with respect to them; the sentence was intended to talk about the shore batteries though.

The "special agreement" thing is an international tribunal thing... like a stipulation as to the issues the court is to resolve. I'm thinking about how to address that. Ideally, there should be an article on special agreements in international law. It might be worth redlinking.

Professors Vochoc and Lapenna... I have no idea what they're professors of. I wish I had more information on them. They weren't part of the case for long. I don't even know their given names. I guess the answer to that would be to just drop any mention of them. I'm going to have to think about that.

The deadline... basically, while Albania met the deadline, they submitted an objection instead of a memorial (hence the jump to the next subsection). It's a flow problem, for sure. Would the better solution be to end the section with "On 9 December, Albania objected to the application." rather than starting the subsequent section with that clause? —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 13:51, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for such detailed responses. I went ahead and dealt with the shore batteries bit, feel free to tweak it. The redlink is a good idea IMO, and I'll implement it now. I think the easiest way to deal with the professors would be to drop them, unless you can find something relevant. Wrt the deadline, how about saying "The UK submitted its evidence by the deadline, whereas Albania filed an objection" and beginning the next section "In the objection filed on 9 Dec, Albania said..." or something along those lines? Also, I just noticed; what does "memorials" mean in this context? Didn't catch that the first time. The rest of the issues I think I'll leave entirely to you, as they are very context dependent. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:54, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

With respect to the section transition, what you suggest is perfect; I've put it in. As to "memorial", it's the same as definition 3 of memorial at Wiktionary. It's a specific term used to refer to that phase of proceedings in the ICJ, so I'm not sure we can substitute an alternate word. Maybe something like "... for each party's submission of memorials: documents detailing [roughly whatever memorials contain]." I'll check my sources on that. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 19:48, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Disputed references

Concerning these reversions: [1] [2]

The first has the reason "the citation of the Hague Convention isn't mentioned in the news article". This is on page 4 of the ICJ PDF, marked page 9 in the original document, in paragraph 3. The second has the reason "unsourced: no mention of reparations in ICRC cite". This is correct, the ICRC site does not mention reparations; it shows that Albania is not a party to the convention. The other two references mention reparations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.135.249.113 (talk) 14:26, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

None of the sources you've cited explicitly say that there's any connection between the Hague Conventions and the Corfu Channel case or Britain's demands of Albania. Your persistence in inserting these references to support a claim that isn't in them is both synthetic and unverifiable. You need to stop this, because it violates Wikipedia policy. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 15:03, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

From the referenced PDF on the website of the International Court of Justice, on the mentioned page, in the mentioned paragraph:

3. The claim of the Government of the United Kingdom is that the Albanian Government either caused to be laid, or had knowledge of the laying of, mines in its territorial waters in the Strait of Corfu without notifying the existence of these mines as required by Articles 3 and 4 of Hague Convention No. VI11 of 1907, by the general principles of international law and by the ordinary dictates of humanity ; [...]

It continues:

(4) that the Court shall decide that the -4lbanian Government is internationally responsible for the said loss and injury and is under an obligation to make reparation or pay compensation to the Government of the United Kingdom therefor; and (5) that the Court shall determine the reparation or compensation.

I will avoid reverting your removal of the information under discussion until it is clear you are satisfied that it meets the criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia. 50.135.249.113 (talk) 15:18, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Okay, it's interesting that the Hague Conventions are mentioned in some filings, but you appear to be reading too far into the mere mention of the Hague Conventions in this minor document. First, that document does not state that the sole (or even primary) basis for the demand for reparations (or that the Albanian mining of the channel violated international law) was the Hague Convention. The statement appears to me, rather, to be arguing that the principles of the Hague Convention were part of either general principles or customary international law (hence the reference to general principles and "ordinary dictates of humanity"). Second, and putting all that aside, the big issue is that it's not particularly relevant to the discussion of the demand for reparations. A demand was made. That's all that needs to be said at that point. This is an article about the subsequent legal proceedings. Finally, what mention there is in that reference is fairly vague and minor compared to the overall dispute, meaning it probably fails WP:DUE. In short, it's not appropriate to mention the Hague Convention here. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 19:34, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

cite: "To list the source(s) from which one took information, words or literary or verbal context."

The British government did not list any law, or agreement, or treaty, that says that Albania should have had to pay compensation/reparations. But they did imply, by mentioning it, that Hague Convention VIII was part of why Albania should pay reparations, and why the ICJ should decide that Albania should do so.

In fact, the British government in its complaint to the ICJ did not reference "customary international law". In a somewhat related case, where there was an attempt to determine if a government's action was "legal", the UN's investigation into the Gaza Freedom Flotilla did refer to "customary international law", but the British government did not in this case.

The British government said that not notifying of the existence of mines, if Albania had laid them, would have been in violation of 1907 Hague VIII, and this is true. Although their phrasing was a little bit vague and a casual reader could assume that not notifying about the mines would have been in violation of 1907 Hague VIII even if Albania did not lay them, and it does not appear that 1907 Hague VIII actually says this, the ICJ would naturally have checked to see what 1907 Hague VIII actually said. But by referencing 1907 Hague VIII, Britain/UK etc. was implying that it was relevant to the case at hand. "Notifying of the existence of mines" is certainly required by 1907 Hague VIII, but it is only required for powers that had actually signed or acceded to the treaty.

It is important because Albania appears to have claimed that it did not lay the mines. I looked at one of the sources where Albania is said to have claimed this, but it does not appear to be available online so I don't know exactly what Albania said. The ICJ's award to Britain was based on the idea that Albania was negligent and did not intend to have mines in a location where they would damage British vessels or any other vessels.

So if Albania had said that it had in fact laid the mines, and that the British minesweeping operation had resulted in the destruction or loss of Albania's property, Albania would have had a better arguing position. The ICJ stated in its opinion on Albania's attempt to declare the investigation invalid that it was a case where there was a defendant (Albania) and an accuser (Britain), or whatever the legal terms are; the document where it stated this, and summarized the events that caused the dispute, did not mention the minesweeping operation though the final verdict later on did.

The ICJ did not attempt to determine who had laid the mines, since as the judgement said it decided that question was irrelevant, but it is still possible, or even likely (as Britain argued), that Albania did. The initial British complaint to the ICJ (after recommendation by the Security Council) is clearly implying that Albania would have been 'bad' if it had laid the mines that damaged the British vessels. The exact language is, "The claim of the UK Government is... that the Court shall decide that the Albanian Government is internationally responsible for the said loss and injury and is under an obligation to make reparation or pay compensation".

It does not refer to any "customary international law(s)" that say that compensation should or must be paid in such a case, because there were none. The previous version of the ICJ basically failed, and as I recall this was the court's first major case, or first case at all, and it also stated that there previously had been no attempt to take matters of involving force before a court.

So they were very much making it up as they went, and it seems like they made a bluff by implying that in the case Albania had laid the mines, its "responsibility" would be equal to or greater than in the case where someone else had laid them. It seems like Albania did not call this bluff.

The exact legal reasoning, or lack of it, used by the British is interesting because only 17 months before, the US [Operation Starvation|had laid] either about 12,000, or about 14,000 mines, on Japanese shipping routes in order to sink Japanese merchant ships. Unlike Albania, Japan was (and is) a party to the 1907 Hague Convention VIII, as are the US and the UK. If the US was so flagrantly violating conventions it had itself agreed to (unlike Albania which had not), would it have been justified for the ICJ to award a judgement to the UK for what was not even a violation of the same convention?

The idea that "nations are legally responsible, or should at least pay attention to, conventions that they and even a majority of other nations have not signed" would seem objectionable to much of the world, for example the refusal of the US and some other nations to subject themselves to higher judicial bodies. But this is exactly what the British government was implying should happen here, and by not explaining why the Albanian government might have thought it was in its best interest to not admit to laying the mines (even if the course of action it took was a tactical error), it gives the impression that "people who did bad things were punished in the past, but they no longer are". 50.135.249.113 (talk) 21:02, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

That's an interesting argument, but I regret that Wikipedia is not the place to publish your argument, nor to cover this case in a manner that displays your argument. If you have a reliable source that articulates that argument, it might be interesting to cover. Otherwise, it doesn't belong here. Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 02:09, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

I apologize, but the edit under contention is not original research: "citing the 1907 Hague Convention relative to the Laying of Automatic Submarine Contact Mines, which Albania is not a party to." It would appear you are confused or have forgotten what this discussion was about. Accordingly, I am returning the article to its previous state before your reversion. 2601:8:9780:1EE:1CFE:53C:4ED0:76B2 (talk) 12:10, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Stop adding your original research and synthesis. If you have a reliable source that articulates your argument and indicates that the Hague Convention is substantially relevant to the ICJ case under discussion, it might be interesting to cover. Otherwise, you need to stop. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 16:23, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Earlier you said, "Okay, it's interesting that the Hague Conventions are mentioned in some filings, but you appear to be reading too far into the mere mention of the Hague Conventions in this minor document." My "argument", as you state it, appears to be that the British cited the Hague document, which is supported by the ICJ's documents. I have noticed that the place where I inserted this information into the article is incorrect. I haven't seen a copy of the 9 Dec demand from the UK to Albania, as the reference does not have an online link (despite that a copy of the correspondence might be available from the ICJ), but the proper place to mention the Hague Convention is under Case history, which is the next paragraph. Your argument for why my "argument" is not relevant is that you seem to think that it doesn't matter why the UK thought that the ICJ should award it a judgement from Albania. Is an encyclopedia based on "things that don't matter, so we shouldn't mention them", or is it based on mentioning relevant facts? 2601:8:9780:1EE:1CFE:53C:4ED0:76B2 (talk) 17:45, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

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