Of all the four Conventions the second Convention conforms most nearly with existing customary law and its contents are, at the same time, the most varied of them all. They comprise, in fact, all the traditional solutions to the various problems to which the regime of the high seas has, through the centuries, given rise. They almost form an extract from the many textbooks of public international law dealing with the high seas and there is hardly an element of surprise or novelty in them.

The object of this article is to consider whether the ownership of expropriated property of aliens also passes to the expropriating state if the expropriation purporting to be nationalisation is not accompanied by compensation. It deals only with property (including enterprises) located within the territory of the nationalising state and belonging to aliens. The appropriation by governmental agencies of (enemy) property during or in connection with a war will not be discussed.

More than 75,000 nationals of the Netherlands are currently residing in the Federal Republic of Germany. The courts of the Federal Republic have therefore quite often had to deal with questions bearing on succession to property belonging to Netherlands nationals and situated in their jurisdiction. Furthermore, a short article on the subject here discussed, written by this author two years ago, has not only provoked extensive academic discussion in German legal periodicals, but has also recently guided— or, as asserted by eminent authority, misguided —at least one German court to a decision on the Netherlands private international law of succession which not only is at odds with well-nigh universal legal opinion in the Netherlands but also at least seemingly at variance with a long line of Netherlands judicial decisions.