The Geneva Award

During the Civil War, the Confederate Navy was struggling to assemble a fleet of warships.  Coming to their aid was the British shipbuilder, John Laird Sons & Company, who had constructed the CSS Alabama.  The Alabama was a screw sloop-of-war that served as a commerce raider.  For the duration of the war the Alabama, as well as other British made ships, tormented United States Vessels causing millions of dollars in damage.  The interaction between England and the Confederate States was questionable because England was officially neutral in the conflict.  After the war the newly reunified United States sought reparations from Great Britain for their actions.

Initially Senator Charles Sumner the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wanted to ask for two billion dollars.  Or Canada.  However as reconstruction took front stage, interest in expansionism dwindled.  The final settlement, known as the Geneva Award for the fact it was negotiated in Geneva, Switzerland, was for fifteen million, two hundred fifty thousand dollars paid in gold.  The settlement was reached on September 14, 1872 with full payment delivered a year later.  Great Britain apologized for the damage caused by the ships, but admitted no guilt.  The Geneva Award was part of the Treaty of Washington which finalized borders with Canada and established the rules for neutrality during wartime.

1. That due diligence "ought to be exercised by neutral governments in exact proportion to the risks to which either of the belligerents may be exposed, from a failure to fulfill the obligations of neutrality on their part."
2. "The effects of a violation of neutrality committed by means of the construction, equipment, and armament of a vessel are not done away with by any commission which the government of the belligerent power benefited by the violation of neutrality may afterward have granted to that vessel; and the ultimate step by which the offense is completed cannot be admissible as a ground for the absolution of the, nor can the consummation of his fraud become the means of establishing his innocence."
3. "The principle of extraterritoriality has been admitted into the laws of nations, not as an absolute right, but solely as a proceeding founded on the principle of courtesy and mutual deference between different nations, and therefore can never be appealed to for the protection of acts done in violation of neutrality."

-Professor Walter