" 

 ::::cite: ""To list the source(s) from which one took information, words or literary or verbal context."" 

 ::::The British government did not list any law, or agreement, or treaty, that says that Albania should have had to pay compensation/reparations. But they did imply, by mentioning it, that Hague Convention VIII was part of why Albania should pay reparations, and why the ICJ should decide that Albania should do so. 

 ::::In fact, the British government in its complaint to the ICJ did not reference ""customary international law"". In a somewhat related case, where there was an attempt to determine if a government's action was ""legal"", the UN's investigation into the Gaza Freedom Flotilla did refer to ""customary international law"", but the British government did not in this case. 

 ::::The British government said that not notifying of the existence of mines, if Albania had laid them, would have been in violation of 1907 Hague VIII, and this is true. Although their phrasing was a little bit vague and a casual reader could assume that not notifying about the mines would have been in violation of 1907 Hague VIII even if Albania did not lay them, and it does not appear that 1907 Hague VIII actually says this, the ICJ would naturally have checked to see what 1907 Hague VIII actually said. But by referencing 1907 Hague VIII, Britain/UK etc. was implying that it was relevant to the case at hand. ""Notifying of the existence of mines"" is certainly required by 1907 Hague VIII, but it is only required for powers that had actually signed or acceded to the treaty. 

 ::::It is important because Albania appears to have claimed that it did not lay the mines. I looked at one of the sources where Albania is said to have claimed this, but it does not appear to be available online so I don't know exactly what Albania said. The ICJ's award to Britain was based on the idea that Albania was negligent and did not intend to have mines in a location where they would damage British vessels or any other vessels. 

 ::::So if Albania had said that it had in fact laid the mines, and that the British minesweeping operation had resulted in the destruction or loss of Albania's property, Albania would have had a better arguing position. The ICJ stated in its opinion on Albania's attempt to declare the investigation invalid that it was a case where there was a defendant (Albania) and an accuser (Britain), or whatever the legal terms are; the document where it stated this, and summarized the events that caused the dispute, did not mention the minesweeping operation though the final verdict later on did. 

 ::::The ICJ did not attempt to determine who had laid the mines, since as the judgement said it decided that question was irrelevant, but it is still possible, or even likely (as Britain argued), that Albania did. The initial British complaint to the ICJ (after recommendation by the Security Council) is clearly implying that Albania would have been 'bad' if it had laid the mines that damaged the British vessels. The exact language is, ""The claim of the UK Government is... that the Court shall decide that the Albanian Government is internationally responsible for the said loss and injury and is under an obligation to make reparation or pay compensation"". 

 ::::It does not refer to any ""customary international law(s)"" that say that compensation should or must be paid in such a case, because there were none. The previous version of the ICJ basically failed, and as I recall this was the court's first major case, or first case at all, and it also stated that there previously had been no attempt to take matters of involving force before a court. 

 ::::So they were very much making it up as they went, and it seems like they made a bluff by implying that in the case Albania had laid the mines, its ""responsibility"" would be equal to or greater than in the case where someone else had laid them. It seems like Albania did not call this bluff. 

 ::::The exact legal reasoning, or lack of it, used by the British is interesting because only 17 months before, the US [Operation Starvation|had laid] either about 12,000, or about 14,000 mines, on Japanese shipping routes in order to sink Japanese merchant ships. Unlike Albania, Japan was (and is) a party to the 1907 Hague Convention VIII, as are the US and the UK. If the US was so flagrantly violating conventions it had itself agreed to (unlike Albania which had not), would it have been justified for the ICJ to award a judgement to the UK for what was not even a violation of the same convention? 

 ::::The idea that ""nations are legally responsible, or should at least pay attention to, conventions that they and even a majority of other nations have not signed"" would seem objectionable to much of the world, for example the refusal of