CONTRA,BAND. Contraband (from con tra batman or bandum, contrary to the ban or edict), is a term applied to certain articles which international law allows a belhgerent to seize and confiscate even when found on neutral vessels, and which are being transported for the use of the enemy. By means of a blockade (q.v.) a belligerent may cut off all neutral trade and intercourse with his enemy; through his power to capture contraband goods he may pre vent neutrals from funusfung the enemy with such goods as by the law of nations are re garded as contraband. These are the two prin cipal weapons which international law places in the hands of belligerents for cutting off the over-sea commerce of their enemies, the effec tiveness of each depending, of course, upon the sea power of the belligerent which employs them. Both may be resorted to at the same time, and in the hands of a nation which con trols the seas they may become a means of reducing the enemy to starvation and thus com pel him to surrender. International law, how ever, allows the citizens or subjects of neutral powers to carry on at their nsk contraband trade with either or all belligerents, subject to the rights of the injured belligerent to capture and confiscate all such articles as fall within the category of the contraband. Their govern ment is not bound to prohibit them from engag ing. in such traffic; on the other hand, it is not their duty to intervene to protect them from losses which they may sustain from having their goods captured by one of the belligerents.
Different governments have held different views as to what articles properly fall within the category of contraband and the policy of the same state has not infrequently varied from time to time, sometimes quite inconsistently. Grotius, the first great writer on the law of nations, classified articles into three groups: first, absolute contraband, or those used exclu sively for war purposes; second, innocent goods, or those incapable of being used at all for mill, tory purposes; and third, conditional contra band, or those susceptible of being used both for purposes of peace and war. This classifica tion has in practice been generally observed by belligerents, although there has been no agree ment as to what articles fall in each class. The
subject was discussed at the second Hague conference in 1907, but no decision was reached. It was again considered at the London Naval Conference of 1908-09 with more success, but the declaration adopted by the conference has not been ratified by any of the governments there represented. At the outbreak of the Euroixan War most of the maritime powers of Europe put the Declaration into effect with certain modifications, some of whic.h related to the subject of contraband. The Dec laration, although unratified, represents the nearest approach to an agreement among the maritime powers that has ever been reached. It enumerates a list of articles embracing such things as arms, munitions, armor plates, war ships, military clothing and harness, pack and draft animals, etc., which are declared to be absolute contraband. In the second place it contains a list of articles declared to be condi tional contraband, and embracing such things as food-stuffs, cloth, coin, vehicles, air-craft, fuel, barbed wire, horseshoes, field glasses, etc.; and the third group embraces vanous articles which are declared not to be contraband at all, such as raw cotton, wool, silk, flax, hemp, rub ber, rosin, rawhides, metallic ores, paper, soap, agricultural machinery, precious stones, clocks, feathers, etc. These lists, however, are not considered as absolutely fixed, for article 23 of the Declaration allows belligerents to add other articles used "exclusively for war purposes° to the list of absolute contraband, and article 25 permits similar additions to be made to the list of conditional contraband. It does not, however, permit the placing on the list of absolute con traband of articles which are susceptible of both innocent and warlike use nor does it allow belligerents to treat as contraband, either abso lute or conditional, articles which are suscep tible only of innocent use. The disregard of this rule by the entente allies during the Euro pean War in treating cotton, air-craft, copper, rubber, glycerine, zinc, lead, wool, tin, castor oil, and various other commodities as absolute contraband evoked a protest from the German government and was the subject of complaint in the United States and other neutral countries.