## Facts

- West Rand Central Gold Mining Company, Limited was a British mining company operating a gold mine in the South African Republic (the Transvaal Republic).
- On October 2, 1899, two parcels of the company’s gold were seized by officials of the Transvaal Republic while the gold was in transit between Johannesburg and Cape Town.
- On October 9, 1899, additional gold belonging to the company was taken from the company’s bank, allegedly by officials acting for the Transvaal Republic.
- The company claimed the former republic took the gold for public use and did not compensate the company.
- On October 11, 1899, war broke out between Great Britain and the Transvaal Republic.
- By the end of hostilities (as pleaded), the territories of the Transvaal Republic were conquered and annexed by Great Britain, and the republic’s government ceased to exist.
- In June 1904, the company filed a petition of right against the King, asserting that because the British Crown succeeded the former republic after conquest and annexation, the Crown became bound to satisfy the former republic’s liability to pay for the gold.
- The Crown demurred, accepting the pleaded facts for purposes of the demurrer but arguing they disclosed no claim enforceable in an English municipal court.

## Issues

1. Whether, upon conquest and annexation of the Transvaal Republic, the British Crown became liable (without any express undertaking) for the former republic’s pre-annexation financial liability to a private company.
2. Whether any such liability, if said to arise from international law, formed part of English law in a way that could be enforced against the Crown by petition of right.
3. Whether the claim was non-justiciable because it depended on sovereign acts connected with war, conquest, and annexation (act of state).

## Decision

- The court allowed the Crown’s demurrer and dismissed the petition of right.
- The court held the petition disclosed no right enforceable against the Crown in an English municipal court.
- The court held there was no established rule of international law under which a conquering and annexing state automatically becomes liable, absent express stipulation, to discharge the conquered state’s pre-annexation financial liabilities owed to private persons.
- The court treated the alleged transfer of liability as turning on matters of state action in the foreign affairs and war sphere, which the municipal court would not convert into a money obligation of the Crown without clear legal basis.

## Legal Principles

- International law is recognized by English courts only to the extent that a rule is clearly established and can operate consistently with domestic law.
- On conquest and annexation, a conquering state does not, by international law alone and without express assumption, become liable in its own courts for the conquered state’s prior debts or compensation liabilities to private creditors.
- A petition of right requires a recognized legal right against the Crown under English law; it cannot be used to enforce a disputed or unadopted rule of international law as if it were a domestic cause of action.
- Claims that depend on war, conquest, annexation, or other high acts of state will not be treated as creating enforceable municipal-law liabilities without an express undertaking or other clear source of domestic legal obligation.

## Conclusion

West Rand Central Gold Mining Company sought payment from the Crown for gold taken by Transvaal officials shortly before war began, arguing the Crown inherited the former republic’s liability after conquest and annexation. The King’s Bench Division rejected the claim on demurrer, holding that no clearly established rule of international law imposed automatic successor liability for such pre-annexation obligations to a private party, and that the petition of right therefore disclosed no enforceable right against the Crown in an English court.


West Rand Central Gold Mining Company, Limited v. The King, 2 K.B. 391 (1905)