Grogan Stump had once defined people and beasts, settling a question the Wizarding World had debated since the fourteenth century. He believed that any creature intelligent enough to understand the laws of magical society and bear part of the responsibility for making those laws could be called a person.
Albus seemed to have a fondness for this sort of thing, for turning beasts into people. Veela were classified as beasts, though not the same kind of "beast" as Werewolves like Lupin.
Beasts usually lived in forests, and forests were not as empty as people imagined. On the contrary, they were rich in resources—so much so that the greedy people who wrote the Civil Code had made a special note of it: the right to use forests was governed by special laws.
The forests of Brussels were currently collateral. As long as the Belgians could redeem them, the right of use would still belong to Belgium. If they could not, it would be like the Suez Canal: clearly on their own land, yet none of the profits had anything to do with the Egyptian government.
There was another way: launch an American Revolutionary War and drive the Dutch and Dutch banks out of Belgium. But an American Revolutionary War still required "force." Rousseau said that when one met robbers in the forest and wanted to protect one's purse, the best way was to let the robbers know how formidable one was—give them a savage beating.
Force did not create rights, but it was necessary nonetheless. It was like when Harry encountered Dementors. If he had not used his wand, both he and Dudley would have been in danger. Yet Fudge's decision afterward to expel Harry from school, even imprison him, on the grounds that he had violated the International Statute of