ABSTRACT
The precarious nature of the legal regime that has governed the Suez Canal is reflective of the qualitatively different manner in which international law has been applied in the Middle East. Although the Suez Canal zone had been declared neutral in the 1856 Concession, this bilateral agreement between Egypt and the Ottoman Empire meant little to Britain, which used the Canal as the basis of its attack against the nationalist Ahmed Arabi, who was in effective control of Egypt at the time. The Suez Canal Company was registered as an Egyptian Company under Egyptian Law; and Colonel Nasser had indicated that he intended to compensate the shareholders at ruling market prices. The Suez Canal was deemed too important by France, and especially by Britain, to be left either to the vagaries of local control or to the solid foundation of international law.
