The neutral has the right to be left alone.
1. The neutral State has the right to be regarded as still at peace with the belligerents as with others.
Neutral territory is sacred.
2. The belligerent States have to respect the inviolability of the neutral and the undisturbed exercise of its sovereignty in its home affairs, to abstain from any attack upon the same, even if the necessity of war should make such an attack desirable. Neutral States, therefore, possess also the right of asylum for single members or adherents of the belligerent Powers, so far as no favor to one or other of them is thereby implied. Even the reception of a smaller or larger detachment of troops which is fleeing from pursuit does not give the pursuer the right to continue his pursuit across the frontier of the neutral territory. It is the business of the neutral State to prevent troops crossing over in order to reassemble in the chosen asylum, reform, and sally out to a new attack.
The neutral may resist a violation of its territory “with all the means in its power.”
3. If the territory of a neutral State is trespassed upon by one of the belligerent parties for the purpose of its military operations, then this State has the right to proceed against this violation of its territory with all the means in its power and to disarm the trespassers. If the trespass has been committed on the orders of the Army Staff, then the State concerned is bound to give satisfaction and compensation; if it has been committed on their own responsibility, then the individual offenders can be punished as criminals. If the violation of the neutral territory is due to ignorance of its frontiers and not to evil intention, then the neutral State can demand the immediate removal of the wrong, and can insist on necessary measures being taken to prevent a repetition of such contempts.
Neutrality is presumed.
4. Every neutral State can, so long as it itself keeps faith, demand that the same respect shall be paid to it as in time of peace. It is entitled to the presumption that it will observe strict neutrality and will not make use of any declarations or other transactions as a cloak for an injustice against one belligerent in favor of the other, or will use them indifferently for both. This is particularly important in regard to Passes, Commissions, and credentials issued by a neutral State.[115]
The property of neutrals.
5. The property of the neutral State, as also that of its citizens, is, even if it lies within the seat of war, to be respected so far as the necessity of war allows. It can obviously be attacked and even destroyed in certain circumstances by the belligerents, but only if complete compensation be afterwards made to the injured owners. Thus—to make this clear by an example from the year 1870—the capture and sinking of six English colliers at Duclaix was both justified and necessary on military grounds, but it was, for all that, a violent violation of English property, for which on the English side compensation was demanded, and on the German side was readily forthcoming.
Diplomatic Intercourse.
6. Neutral States may continue to maintain diplomatic intercourse with the belligerent Powers undisturbed, so far as military measures do not raise obstacles in the way of it.
THE END
FOOTNOTES
[1] Il Principe, cap. 18.
[2] No! the Hague Regulations, Art. 44: “Any compulsion by a belligerent on the population of occupied territory to give information as to the army of the other belligerent, or as to his means of defense, is prohibited.”
[3] No! the English Manual of Military Law, ch. xiv, sec. 463.
[4] Yes! the Hague Regulations, Art. 52: “They must be in proportion to the resources of the country”; and to the same effect the English Manual of Military Law, sec. 416, and the British Requisitioning Instructions.
[5] Yes! the Hague Regulations, Arts. 23 and 52; also Actes et Documents (of the Conference), III, p. 120.
[6] Yes! the Hague Regulations, Art. 2: “The population of a territory which has not been occupied who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading troops, without having had time to organize themselves in accordance with Article I, shall be regarded as belligerents.”