Pacific blockade

Pacific blockade was a term invented by Hautefeuille, the French writer on international maritime law, to describe a blockade exercised by a great power for the purpose of bringing pressure to bear on a weaker state without actual war.

That it is an act of violence, and therefore in the nature of war, is undeniable, seeing that it can only be employed as a measure of coercion by maritime powers able to bring into action such vastly superior forces to those the resisting state can dispose of that resistance is out of the question. In this respect it is an act of war, and any attempt to exercise it against a power strong enough to resist would be a commencement of hostilities, and at once bring into play the rights and duties affecting neutrals. On the other hand, the object and justification of a pacific blockade being to avoid war, that is general hostilities and disturbance of international traffic with the state against which the operation is carried on, rights of war cannot consistently be exercised against ships belonging to other states than those concerned. And yet, if neutrals were not to be affected by it, the coercive effect of such a blockade might be completely lost. Recent practice has been to limit interference with them to the extent barely necessary to carry out the purpose of the blockading powers.