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23.
In construing the 1898 Convention and in attempting
to answer the question whether there has been any breach of its
provisions by the Crown, we direct our attention to three points
in the Convention:
(i) "there will be no expropriation ... of the
inhabitants";
(ii) "if land is required for public offices ...
of the like official purposes";
(iii)"it shall be bought at a fair price".
"EXPROPRIATION"
24.
The Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines "expropriation"
as: "The action of depriving of property"; "The action of taking
property out of the owner's hands, especially by public
authority". The Dictionary does not refer to compensation
in this context, but it would seem to us that what the parties
to the Convention intended was that there should be no
expropriation without compensation.
25.
The subject of expropriation in international law
is very wide and in the short time available to us to formulate
our Opinion we have not been able to go into the matter in much
depth. It seems to have been recognised in a number of inter-
national cases that expropriation carried with it an obligation
to make "adequate, effective and prompt compensation" and, in
the Eastern Extension, Australasia and China Telegraph Co. case
(1923) the tribunal went so far as to state that the right of
expropriation had "no existence as a right from the obligation
to make compensation" (UN Reports Vol. VI p. 112 to 115). From
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