Suchergebnisse

Jurisdiction — Exemption from — Foreign States — Waiver of Immunity — Implied Waiver — Institution of Proceedings — Immunity from Jurisdiction with Regard to Immovable Property — Extent of Principle of Immunity.

In September 1963, with the formation of Malaysia, British military establishments situated on either side of the Johore Straits were brought within the compass of a single polity. Within less than two years the Malaysian union was put asunder and those military establishments were divided by national frontiers. Such a situation was viewed with displeasure by the British Government which had supported the establishment of Malaysia in part to avoid such a prospect. To add to the problem of dealing with two governments, there was the complicating factor of the unhappy relationship between them and with it the danger of Britain being caught up in the interplay of differences to the extent of prejudicing the value of her military presence.

In the opinions of J. A. Hobson and Lenin European imperial expansion during several decades following 1870 was caused by the need to export surplus capital, and aimed at expediting this process. Hobson saw this necessity as arising from over-production (or under-consumption), a curable defect of capitalism; Lenin as an inherent quality of 'monopoly-capitalism' which was directed principally by bankers and was heading for revolution.

For almost a century before 1629, the sultanate of Acheh in north Sumatra was the most formidable indigenous state on either side of Malacca Strait. A stalemate had developed between Acheh and the Portuguese in Malacca, with the Portuguese unable to maintain sufficient forces locally to invade Acheh, and the Achinese unable to press their numerous sieges of Malacca to a successful conclusion before the Portuguese relief fleet arrived from India. Under additional Dutch pressure early in the seventeenth century, the Portuguese seem to have been unable to render the assistance against Acheh which they had given the Malay states on occasion in the sixteenth century. In 1613–20 Johore, Pahang, Kedah and Perak were conquered by Sultan Iskandar Muda (1607–36) of Acheh. In most cases, the defeated sultan was carried off to Acheh and a relative installed as a vassal of Acheh. Sultan Ala'ud-din Ri'ayat Shah II of Johore escaped when the Achinese overran Batu Sawar in June 1613, but died a few years later. His half-brother, Raja Bongsu or Raja Seberang, was taken to Acheh, married to Iskander Muda's sister, and sent back to Batu Sawar as Sultan Abdu'llah Ma'ayat Shah (1613–23). When Abdu'llah rejected Iskander Muda's sister and married a daughter of the Sultan of Jambi about 1617, he also rejected the Achinese tradition of hostility to the Portuguese. For this, the Achinese pursued him from his new capital at Lingga to Tambilan, where he died of "hartseer" (despair) in 1623. Carpentier, the Dutch governor-general at Batavia, assumed that the once mighty Johore empire had come to an end.

New Zealand was one of the first parts of the British Empire to offer Britain help in the building of the Singapore naval base and was the only Dominion to do so. It is true that considerable financial help was given by the Straits Settlements. Hong Kong, the Federated Malay States and the Sultan of Johore. Australia's naval programme was, also, based on the assumption that the base would be built. But the Reform Party Ministry in New Zealand was the only democratically elected government which supported the United Kingdom Government with a vote of funds.

The Federation of Malaya, formed on 1 February 1948, may be considered a major achievement in state-building in the Third World. Despite great stresses and strains, it was to survive intact until 1963 when it became the dominant part of a larger political entity. Its integrity as a politically unified system was threatened in those fifteen years by numerous secession attempts emanating from Johore (in the period 1955–1956), from Kelantan (in 1955) and from Penang (in the period 1948–1951 and 1953–1957). This article will deal with the most important of these, the Penang secession movement of 1948 to 1951.

The report upon the shortcomings of the Malacca jurisdiction which Extraordinary Councillor Willem de Roo sent to Johan van Hoorn, Governor-General of the Netherlands East Indies, in November 1705 offered reasons for the initiative which he and his colleagues had taken in relations with the Johor Court: '… business in Malacca is wholly fallen into decay, with, it seems to me, little appearance of a big improvement, let alone a full recovery of the formerly flourishing trade, because people have indulgently too long allowed contracts concluded with surrounding rulers and allies to be broken without making much complaint thereupon, or themselves maintaining (the force of the contracts), principally concerning the Johorese …'

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century Britain converted her paramountcy into effective control in the central and southern states of the Malay Peninsula (except Johore) through the device of British Residents whose advice the several Malay rulers were obliged to accept in "all matters of administration". But strong local pressure for the extension of this system northwards into the Siamese part of the Peninsula was neutralized by the Foreign Office which sought alternative means of safeguarding British interests there. This paper examines the various arrangements considered when the intrusion of another European power appeared likely, culminating in a secret convention between Britain and Stem signed in April 1897.