§ 105. Aircraft landing in Neutral Territory. Other questions of an international character relating to aircraft do not appear to present any serious difficulty. Evidently a belligerent aircraft descending into neutral territory will be interned, just as would a cavalryman or an armoured motor-car. To treat an aeroplane or airship according to the rule established in the case of a warship would clearly be to admit its right to have been in the territorial air of the neutral Power concerned, which, we may assume, will be considered quite inadmissible. Already, in the course of the present war, we have seen the hospitality of neutrals greatly abused. It certainly is not just or expedient that the cruisers of a nation which has ceased to possess any coaling stations, or bases, of its own should be allowed to roam indefinitely at large, interfering with the commerce of an enemy, when such action would have been impossible without neutral assistance. The proof of the inexpediency of the existing rule in such a case is to be found in the fact that the difficulty could be soon ended by a few declarations of war against some of the minor neutral Powers, with the bombardment of the ports by which the enemy is served. The very fact that this becomes the logical reply, which, but for humanitarian considerations, would without doubt be pursued, demonstrates an inherent deficiency in the present international code, and one which perhaps may, in due course, be remedied. Any rule by which aircraft would be enabled to utilise neutral territory or neutral resources for repair, refit, or replenishment would almost certainly be the cause of great friction, and might result in a position so impossible as to drag the neutral Power into the conflict, the precise eventuality that it should be an object of international convention to avoid.[1]
In other respects there would seem to be no reason
- ↑ Footnote page following.
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