88 Law and Morality Abroad (to ca. ad 1550)A second ser vice that governments performed for traders was to bring le-
gal claims on their behalf against foreign governments in cases of mistreat-
ment. Th is is a form of international law activity that remains part of day- to-
day state practice to the present day. An instructive instance occurred in
1232, when a Genoese merchant complained of mistreatment by En glish au-
thorities on the island of Oléron. He alleged that, upon landing on the island
because of distress of weather, his goods were confi scated by the local au-
thorities without cause. Th e merchant informed his own authorities of his
plight, who then in turn made a complaint to the En glish government on the
matter. Th e ultimate result of this complaint is not known, but the aff air
provides an early illustration of what international lawyers would call a
claim— meaning a formal repre sen ta tion by one government to another of a
legal wrong, with a view to receiving compensation of some kind.
Th e third major legal ser vice that governments off ered to merchants was
the licensing of reprisals. Reprisals were a sort of combination of claims on
behalf of nationals and just wars. Th ey resembled claims on behalf of na-
tionals in that they were designed to deal with injuries to private parties
rather than to states. But they resembled just wars in involving a resort to
force— though in the form of capturing property, not of attacking persons.
Reprisals diff ered from just wars in two other respects as well. First, the
force was employed only by the injured party himself and not by the armed
forces of his country generally. Second, reprisals were taken not against the
actual wrongdoer, but instead against surrogate parties who had not person-
ally committed the original wrong. Specifi cally, reprisals were taken against
fellow nationals of the original wrongdoer.
Fundamental to the phenomenon of reprisals was the principle of collec-
tive responsibility of a community for wrongs committed by its members.
If a merchant from, say, En gland was doing business in France and, in the
pro cess, was defrauded by a French trader, then French traders in general
could be made responsible for compensating the injured party. Th e En glish
merchant would petition his own monarch for a license to take action
against French traders located in En glish territory. Th is license came to be
called a “letter of reprisal.” It functioned as a sort of search- and- seizure
warrant, entitling the holder to enter the premises of French traders in En-
gland and to confi scate property from them, up to the amount of his origi-
nal loss.