'11/5 Negotiations with Ibn Saud regarding Boundaries of Saudi Arabia' [‎185v] (372/430)

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that Ibn Saud has in fact to some extent established his own authority there.
T am not attempting to advise now whether the amount of authority Ibn baud has
exercised uS'this date is sufficient to give him a title by occupation or prescnp-
uon or whether it is only a state of affairs which will produce this result m time,
if his nresent authority there is maintained and increased.
7 P On these grounds I think that the territory immediately east ot the blue
line is at present either res nullius or (conceivably) in parts already under the
sovereignty oObn barn!f ^ ^ ^ agalDSl His Majesty's Government when
they seek to maintain that the blue line represents to-day the limits of Ibn Saud s
domirdons (as opposed to those which he could claim as successor to Turkey) m
based upon the subsequent agreements and negotiations with him in 1915 1J22
and 1927 It is true, as Sir A. Ryan states, that the agreements of 1915 a 27
appear to proceed upon the basis that Ibn Sand’s territories and those of the
Sheikh of Qatar. &c„ are co-terminous, i.e., that there is no vacuum between them,
but this seems to me to be an argument which cuts both ways though of course
it does dispose of any case bu.lt up on a British sphere of influence as opposed
to territory belonging to the dominions of the Sheikh of Qatar. But from the
legal point of view, the sphere of influence argument was clearly hopeless m any
case and any substantial use of it seems to be merely an admission of weakness
on our part and a virtual giving away of any legal case that we may have. It
is of course, an argument against His Majesty’s Government that m negotiating
the 1915 agreement no mention whatever is made of the blue line. It is not by any
means conclusive, because the agreement of 1915 proceeds on the footing that the
boundaries of Ibn Saud on one hand and Qatar on the other are all to be
delimited by agreement. The most that can be said is that the 191o agreement
appears to proceed on the assumption that in the future delimitation b} agice
ment the criterion should be the areas over which Ibn Saud and his predecessors
and the Sheikh of Qatar, &c., possessed in the past, and this rather suggests that
we did not think the blue line agreement with Turkey was necessarily to be
relevant. This is, of course, not conclusive, because it may well be that Ibn Saud
and his predecessors could not really establish claims on past histoiy to territory
crossing the blue line or even coming anywhere near it, and we would not put the
blue line into the agreement because we were not then prepared to admit that he
could establish a claim that even went as far as this. I doubt vei > much il the
1927 treaty carries the matter any further. The 1922 agreement relates to an
area which is so far distant fromThe blue line that it can hardly be said to be
directly relevant at all. The most that can be said about it is that the fiontier
with Koweit there agreed upon is quite different from that laid down in the
treaty with Turkey of 1913 and once again the arrangements with Turkey do
not appear to have been taken as the basis for fixing the new frontiers. The
argument alone is not, I think, very conclusive, but is, of course, a straw which
acquires some force when added to other indications of the same kind. More
nearly relevant are the lines drawn by Sir Percy Cox in 1922 at T qair actually
in the areas concerned (E. 1512. para. 4 of the India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. memorandum).
Sir Percv Cox drew a line indicating what he considered then to be Ibn Saud s
limits, which follows quite a different course from the blue line, and this is
perhaps a rather strong indication that the 1915 agreement with Ibn Saud did
not mean the blue line to be relied upon when the frontier delimitation contem
plated by that agreement was taking place.
9 The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that, while we are perfectly
justified to use the blue line and the position of Ibn Saud as a successor of
Turkey, &c., as much as we can in negotiating with Ibn Saud in order to secure
the most acceptable frontier possible in wording future agreements, I dp not
think we should win before a tribunal, deciding the matter on legal principles,
if the issue was whether the area immediately east of the blue line was a part
of the territory of the Sheikh of Qatar, a British-protected principality, or, if
it was res nullius, whether Ibn Saud was free to acquire territory by occupation
or prescription, if he could produce evidence of the state of affairs necessary to
support such a claim.
W. E. BECKETT.
August 29, 1934.