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SS Lotus Case: Jurisdiction Ruling

The document summarizes the 1927 Lotus case decided by the Permanent Court of International Justice. A collision occurred between a French and Turkish ship on the high seas, killing eight Turkish nationals. The French officer on watch was tried and sentenced in Turkey. France protested. The PCIJ ruled that Turkey did not violate international law by exercising jurisdiction over the French officer. The ruling established two principles: 1) A state cannot exercise jurisdiction outside its territory unless permitted by treaty or custom. 2) Within its territory, a state may exercise jurisdiction in any matter unless prohibited by international law.

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314 views2 pages

SS Lotus Case: Jurisdiction Ruling

The document summarizes the 1927 Lotus case decided by the Permanent Court of International Justice. A collision occurred between a French and Turkish ship on the high seas, killing eight Turkish nationals. The French officer on watch was tried and sentenced in Turkey. France protested. The PCIJ ruled that Turkey did not violate international law by exercising jurisdiction over the French officer. The ruling established two principles: 1) A state cannot exercise jurisdiction outside its territory unless permitted by treaty or custom. 2) Within its territory, a state may exercise jurisdiction in any matter unless prohibited by international law.

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Elen Cia
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Case of the SS Lotus

7 Septeber 1927.

Actors and Subject of International Law

Facts: A collision occurred on the high seas between a French vessel – Lotus – and a
Turkish vessel – Boz-Kourt. The Boz-Kourt sank and killed eight Turkish nationals on
board the Turkish vessel. The 10 survivors of the Boz-Kourt (including its captain) were
taken to Turkey on board the Lotus. In Turkey, the officer on watch of the Lotus
(Demons), and the captain of the Turkish ship were charged with manslaughter.
Demons, a French national, was sentenced to 80 days of imprisonment and a fine. The
French government protested, demanding the release of Demons or the transfer of his
case to the French Courts. Turkey and France agreed to refer this dispute on the
jurisdiction to the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ).

Issue: Did Turkey violate international law when Turkish courts exercised jurisdiction
over a crime committed by a French national, outside Turkey? If yes, should Turkey pay
compensation to France?

Ruling: Turkey, by instituting criminal proceedings against Demons, did not violate
international law. The Lotus case gave an important dictum on creating customary
international law. France had alleged that jurisdictional questions on collision cases are
rarely heard in criminal cases, because States tend to prosecute only before the flag
State. France argued that this absence of prosecutions points to a positive rule in
customary law on collisions. The Court disagreed and held that, this:

“…would merely show that States had often, in practice, abstained from instituting
criminal proceedings, and not that they recognized themselves as being obliged to do
so; for only if such abstention were based on their being conscious of having a duty to
abstain would it be possible to speak of an international custom. The alleged fact does
not allow one to infer that States have been conscious of having such a duty; on the
other hand, as will presently be seen, there are other circumstances calculated to show
that the contrary is true.”

In other words, opinio juris is reflected not only in acts of States (Nicaragua Case), but
also in omissions when those omissions are made following a belief that the said State
is obligated by law to refrain from acting in a particular way.
The first principle of the Lotus Case: A State cannot exercise its jurisdiction outside its
territory unless an international treaty or customary law permits it to do so. This is what
we called the first principle of the Lotus Case. The Court held that:

“Now the first and foremost restriction imposed by international law upon a State is that
– failing the existence of a permissive rule to the contrary – it may not exercise its power
in any form in the territory of another State. In this sense jurisdiction is certainly
territorial; it cannot be exercised by a State outside its territory except by virtue of a
permissive rule derived from international custom or from a convention.”

The second principle of the Lotus Case: Within its territory, a State may exercise its
jurisdiction, in any matter, even if there is no specific rule of international law permitting
it to do so. In these instances, States have a wide measure of discretion, which is only
limited by the prohibitive rules of international law.

This applied to civil and criminal cases. If the existence of a specific rule was a pre-
requisite to exercise jurisdiction, the Court argued, then “it would…in many cases result
in paralysing the action of the courts, owing to the impossibility of citing a universally
accepted rule on which to support the exercise of their [States’] jurisdiction” (para 48).

The Court based this finding on the sovereign will of States. It held that:

“International law governs relations between independent States. The rules of law
binding upon States therefor emanate from their own free will as expressed in
conventions or by usages generally accepted as expressing principles of law and
established in order to regulate the relations between these co-existing independent
communities or with a view to the achievement of common aims. Restrictions upon the
independence of States cannot therefore be presumed”

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