[644] See Mountague Bernard, Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War (1870), pp. 338-496; Geffcken, Die Alabama Frage (1872); Pradier-Fodéré, La Question de l'Alabama (1872); Caleb Cushing, Le Traité de Washington (1874); Bluntschli in R.I. II. (1870), pp. 452-485; Balch, L'Évolution de l'arbitrage international (1908), pp. 43-70.
[645] Martens, N.R.G. XX. p. 698.
[646] See Moore, VII. § 1330.
In consenting that these rules should be binding upon the arbitrators, Great Britain expressly declared that, in spite of her consent, she maintained that these rules were not recognised rules of International Law at the time when the case of the Alabama occurred, and the treaty contains also the stipulation that the parties—
"Agree to observe these rules as between themselves in future, and to bring them to the knowledge of other Maritime Powers, and to invite them to accede to them."
The appointed arbitrators[647] met at Geneva in 1871, held thirty-two conferences there, and gave decision[648] on September 14, 1872, according to which England had to pay 15,500,000 dollars damages to the United States.
[647] See Moore, Arbitrations, I. pp. 495-682.
[648] The award is printed in full in Moore, Arbitrations, I. pp. 653-659, and in Phillimore, III. § 151.
The arbitrators put a construction upon the term due diligence[649] and asserted other opinions in their decision which are very much contested and to which Great Britain never consented. Thus, Great Britain and the United States, although they agreed upon the three rules, did not at all agree upon the interpretation thereof, and they could, therefore, likewise not agree upon the contents of the communication to other maritime States stipulated by the Treaty of Washington. It ought not, therefore, to be said that the Three Rules of Washington[650] have literally become universal rules of International Law. Nevertheless, they were the starting-point of the movement for the universal recognition of the fact that the duty of impartiality obliges neutrals to prevent their subjects from building and fitting out, to order of belligerents, vessels intended for warlike purposes, and to prevent the departure from their jurisdiction of any vessel, which, by order of a belligerent, has been adapted to warlike use. Particular attention must be paid to the fact that, although article 8 of Convention XIII. in other respects copies almost verbally the first of the Three Rules of Washington, it differs from it in so far as it replaces the words "to use due diligence" by "to employ the means at its disposal." For this reason the construction put by the Geneva arbitrators upon the term due diligence cannot find application to the rule of article 8, the employment of the means at the disposal of a neutral to prevent the acts concerned being a mere question of fact.