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Ref.:
CO 537/1374
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Ins
2
restrictions. Further information is given in the enclosed Terms and Conditions of supply of National Archives' leaflet. Please note that this copy is supplied subject to the National Archives' terms and conditions and that your use of it may be subject to copyright,
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"The Bank of Belgium is a private institution is autonomy must be respected; it is the mistress of its destiny and its council must have complete liberty of action. Under the law of nations, the occupant cannot appoint an administration, cannot impose any line of conduct, and cannot remove any assets. One of the most fundamental and most precious maxims of modern international law is involved: the respect of private property in land warfare".
39
And the author Feilchenfeld himself, cited by the defendant
said that the validity of Section III of the Hague Regulations was not
denied during World War 1, and since then, the validity and applicability
of Articles 42 to 56 of said section were confirmed in a great number of
decisions of international and domestic tribunals. They were never
doubted by any party in a controversy nor questioned by any government.
(Page 5, par. 13, Supra.)
Even if the Hague Regulations did not so provide, we think that
the confiscatory acts of the Japanese invader affecting the credit in
question cannot merit recognition. In the first place, such acts are
not sanctioned by the municipal law of the former sovereignty which is
now victorious. In the second place, the invader did not have plenary
powers of sovereignty, but only powers within the limits of international
law. Those were the precarious powers of a mere belligerent occupant,
exercised during the existence of war. The defeated invader, thereofre,
cannot insist in the recognition of its acts of confiscation which were
against the laws of the conqueror. In the last world war, the United
Nations, prior to the sequestration and disposition of the credit in question by the Japanese, unmistakably declared their policy not to
recognize the confiscatory acts of the Axis nations in the territories occupied by them. Said declaration, dated January 5, 1943, states that the United Nations give formal notice to all the interested parties of
their intention to adopt extreme measures to annul the mehtods of
dispossession effected by the governments with which they are at war against those countries and nations who have been wantonly assaulted and despoiled, wherefore, they reserve the right to declare invalid any transfers of, or dealings with, property, rights and interests of any description whatsoever which are, or have been located in the territories which have fallen under the occupation or control, direct or indirect, of the governments with which they are at war, or which belong or have be-
1
cms
Ref.:
CO 537/1374
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES
2
restrictions. Further information is given in the enclosed Terms and Conditions of supply of National Archives' leaflet.
Please note that this copy is supplied subject to the National Archives' terms and conditions and that your use of it may be subject to copyright