Mavrommatis Palestine Concessions

 Mavrommatis Palestine Concessions is the name of a ruling by the Permanent Court of International Justice from the thirtieth August 1924 .

Facts 

In 1914 the authorities of the Ottoman Empire signed a concession agreement with the Greek entrepreneur Mavrommatis for the construction of a tram and the expansion of the water and electricity supply in Jerusalem . The work was initially delayed because of the First World War . After its end, Palestine was placed under the administration of Great Britain . The British government refused to keep the contract with Mavrommatis and gave the concession to a British entrepreneur. Article nine of the XII. Additional Protocol to the Treaty of Lausannestipulated, however, that concessions issued by 1914 on the part of the successor states (in this case Palestine and its mandate government) had to be observed. After Greece and the United Kingdom failed to reach an agreement through negotiation, Greece brought Mavrommatis to the Permanent International Court of Justice to protect the rights of its national.

The decision 

In its decision, the Court dealt solely with the question of whether it had jurisdiction over the dispute. First, the judges determined that Article 26 of the Mandate Treaty for Palestine could be considered as the legal basis for a decision by the StIGH . This provided that

"The elected mandate holder agrees that disputes between him and another member state of the League of Nations about the interpretation or application of the provisions of the Mandate Treaty, if the dispute cannot be settled through negotiations, be referred to the Permanent International Court of Justice."

The court therefore had to first examine whether the requirements of Article 26 of the League of Nations mandate were met. In the judgment it was stated that claims of the national Mavrommatis himself were in dispute. However, under international law there is an obligation of states to protect their nationals in the event that they have suffered damage through the actions of other states. Greece complied with this obligation by taking over the dispute and thus turning it into a dispute under international law between the two states. ^[1]

The Court also considered that the further requirement of Article 26, that negotiations between the parties must take place first, as fulfilled. Although had Cecil HurstAs a representative of the British government, the judges disagreed with the fact that diplomatic documents had only been exchanged to a very limited extent between the governments - if the negotiations between Mavrommatis himself and the British government are disregarded . They emphasized that the existence of negotiations was a question of the individual case and could not be tied to the scope of the diplomatic writings. Even very brief discussions between governments could be regarded as negotiations within the meaning of Article 26 if, for example, these represented a continuation of discussions already held between the national and a party. The present case is exactly the same.

Furthermore, the StIGH dealt with the question to what extent the dispute revolved around the interpretation or application of the provisions of the mandate contract. The Tribunal also answered this question in the affirmative. The basis of the dispute is the refusal of the British government to recognize the concession agreement of 1914. This behavior must be measured against Article 11 of the mandate contract, which read:

“The government of Palestine takes all measures that are necessary to promote the development of society and the country and is authorized, in compliance with the international legal obligations entered into by the mandate holder, to ensure control over natural resources or other works and the construction of public facilities. There should be a development geared to the needs of the country ... "

This article covers the concession granted to Mavrommatis, since the article refers not only to activities of the Palestinian government itself, but also to activities that have been delegated to private individuals. The court reached this conclusion by interpreting the provision. Accordingly, all of the mandate holder's obligations under international law must be taken into account. These include the XII. Additional protocol of the Lausanne Treaty, as this was also signed by Great Britain. Accordingly, the dispute is about the interpretation and application of the contract.

As a result, the Court thus affirmed that it had jurisdiction over the present case.