Reprisal - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition reprisal

Definition :

Reprisal, the taking one thing in satisfaction for another. Reprisals are used between nation and nation, in order to do themselves justice, when they cannot otherwise obtain it. If a nation has taken possession of what belongs to another-if she refuses to pay a debt, to repair an injury, or to give adequate satisfaction for it-the latter seizes something belonging to the former, and applies it to her own advantage, unless she obtains payment of what is due to her, together with interest and damages, or may keep it as a pledge until she has received ample satisfaction. For the latter it is rather a stoppage or a seizure than reprisals, but they are frequently confounded in common language, Vattel, by Chit. 283. Reprisals are either ordinary, as arresting and taking the goods of merchant-strangers within the realm, or extra-ordinary, as satisfaction out of the realm, and are under the Great Seal, Lex Mercat. 120. See also RECAPTION; CAPIAS IN WITHERNAM; LETTERS OF MARQUE.

The use of force, short of war, against another country to redress an injury caused by that country, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 1305.