The Legal Regulation of Passage through the Turkish Straits

The Turkish Straits are a vital international waterway, particularly as the key to Istanbul and as the meeting place of Europe and Asia. In several places the straits are less than ten kilometers wide and therefore technically within the territorial jurisdiction of their riverine power. Their coasts command the commercial and strategic communication avenues to not only the Marmara and Black Seas but to the whole Black Sea Basin, including southern Russia and the Danube Valley. The question of the straits has been one of the fundamental issues in Turkey's relations with the Great Powers for more than two centuries. Their modern status dates essentially from 1774, when Russia won commercial access to the straits--a right later extended to the other powers--although the waterway remained closed to non-Turkish warships until after the First World War. ¹

Lausanne Straits Convention

The Treaty of Peace with Turkey (Lausanne Treaty) of 24 July 1923, registering the victory of the Turkish nation in its war of liberation, recognized the complete independence of Turkey and included the Lausanne Straits Convention, which laid down the principle of freedom of passage through the straits. This totally changed the provisions of the Convention of 1841, which had given international sanction to the "ancient rule of the Sublime Porte" to keep the straits closed to warships of foreign powers. It guaranteed the commercial freedom of the straits with certain restrictions in time of war, and the warships that any one power might send through the straits during peace were not to exceed the strength of the most powerful Black Sea fleet--the Russian. The powers reserved the right at all times and under all circumstances to send not more than three warships into the Black Sea, none to exceed ten thousand tons. To ensure the execution of these provisions, the convention provided for the demilitarization of both banks of Canakkale and Istanbul, the islands of the Marmara Sea, and the Greek and Turkish islands commanding the entrance to the straits. The International Straits Commission was set up to supervise freedom of passage and ensure proper application of the other provisions of the convention. ²

Turkey's desire for an individual and collective guarantee was denied. Instead, the powers offered to act together under the League of Nations in case the security of the zone was menaced. Nevertheless, both Turkey and Russia considered the straits provisions as inadequate for the security of the region. ³

By the early 1930s, Turkey had become a stabilizing factor in the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean. In 1932 it joined the League of Nations. In 1933 it signed a close alliance with Greece. It took a leading part in the Balkan conferences and concluded the Balkan Entente in 1934 with Greece, Yugoslavia, and Romania to guard against aggression in the region. In that same year, the Turkish-Russian Treaty of Non-Aggression was extended for another ten-year period, and the Pact of Saadabad was initialed in Geneva by Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. By these pacts and alliances, Turkey had done more than enhance its importance as the bridge between Europe and Asia and provide for regional collective security. It had assisted in providing a genuine base for peace, since, as a preliminary to the signing of the pacts, a number of long-standing quarrels and points of friction were removed. Turkey therefore was in a good position to work for the revision of the Lausanne Straits Convention. ⁴

The diplomatic preparation for revision was thorough. At the International Disarmament Conference of 1933, Turkey presented a revision of the statute governing the straits, and it referred to it again at Geneva in the two following years. In 1935 the revision was supported by Russia, and Turkey could thus be assured of Soviet support. During the Ethiopian crisis, Turkey, in return for assuming its full obligations under Article 16 of the League of Nations Covenant, received reciprocal...