ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 177 



wliat 1 understood as expressly declared, that they did not intend to 

 assert it; that the nieusiire was designed as a preventive one. That is 

 to say, it was as I understood it for the purpose of protecting a shore 

 industry; that they did not intend to assert territorial dominion over 

 Behring Sea, although they said they might assert it. 



The President. — That they might assert it if they chose to do so? 



Mr. Carter. — If they chose to do so; but that they did not choose 

 to assert it by the Ukase. 



The President. — There is some doubt as to the use of the word 

 "assert". I think you use the word ''assert" in a diflerent meaning 

 from what Sir Charles does. 



Mr. Carter. — They said they might assert it, and assert it right- 

 fully. There is no doubt about that. 



The President. — Tliey did not mean to exercise it? 



Mr. Carter. — They did not mean even to assert it. 



Sir Charles Russell. — Mr. President, there is a latent ambiguity 

 in my friend's statement which must be cleared up. I began, in order 

 to avoid that ambiguity, by giving to this Tribunal what I conceived to 

 be the meaning of that first question, in order to show that when 

 "riglit" and "exclusive jurisdiction" were there referred to, it did 

 not mean the general inherent right which a nation has to protect its 

 projierty or its interests, which I will discuss hereafter, but that the 

 question was pointed to whether Russia had asserted and exercised 

 territorial jurisdiction. 



Let me recur to that point, which I now see I was quite right in 

 endeavouring to make clear at the beginning of the discussion. I 

 pointed out that a right of defence of property or interest was not an 

 exclusive right. The word in the question is "exclusive". I pointed 

 out further that still less was it an exclusive right of jurisdiction 

 932 in a defined area, because I pointed out that a right of defence 

 or protection of property or interest knew no circumscription of 

 space except where the property to be defended was, where the interest 

 to be defended was. I was not then discussing whether there were the 

 rights which my learned friend professes exist in that regard. I was 

 assuming them for the moment. Thereupon I pro(;eeded to point out, 

 and I hope established, that what the question meant was whether 

 Russia had or had not asserted a sovereign authority exclusive of all 

 other persons, and in a defined and definite area, namely, Behring Sea; 

 and I made that out — at least I thought I made it out — by saying 

 that the case of the United States had been built up on that theory by 

 the use, amongst other things, of these documents which have proved to 

 be unreliable. I made that out by showing the legislative enactments 

 of the United States Congress, based upon its derivative title. I fur- 

 ther made that out by the mode in which they have invoked that 

 municipal authority, as a municipal authority exercisable in a definite 

 area. And finally I made that out by the libel in the Court; by 

 the argument of their counsel; by the argument before the Supreme 

 Court at Washington, and by the appreciation of that argument and 

 position as expressed bj^ the Judges of that High Court. 



The President. — That is perhaps more of historical than of prac- 

 tical interest to the question which is laid before us. 



Sir Charles Russell. — 1 think myself it is important, as I take the 

 liberty of saying, because of its far-reaching consequences. My argu- 

 ment has been, from first to last, that every one of these assertions up 

 to the time we came into Court — i)ractically every one of these asser- 

 tions — is based on the territorial claim of the United States: question 

 B S, PT XIII 12 



