Policing People, Not Places: Polish Maritime Courts, Non-Territorial Sovereignty, and the Global Second World War

• In Event: New Approaches to Displacement, Citizenship, and Statelessness in Twentieth-Century East Central Europe and the Balkans

Abstract

After the Polish territorial state collapsed in 1939, Polish state officials—like their Dutch, Belgian, Greek, and Norwegian counterparts—confronted an existential question from their position in London-based exile: How could a sense of “state-ness” be maintained in the absence of territory and with Polish citizens displaced throughout the world? This paper explores one way in which they responded: through the establishment of legally innovative (and controversial) maritime courts where mariners with Polish citizenship were tried according to Polish law for a range of disciplinary offenses, including insubordination and desertion. Since the courts elevated the question of who could be tried for an offense over the question of where the offense was committed, the courts sought to reify the idea of non-territorial citizenship. As such, Polish mariners became vital characters in a broader effort to plug the “sovereignty gap” between the period prior to the invasion of Poland and an anticipated moment at the end of the war.

Author

• Kathryn Ciancia, U of Wisconsin-Madison