718.1915/547
The Secretary of State to the Panaman Minister of Foreign Affairs on Special Mission (Garay)
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Your Excellency’s note of July 21,9 referring to the boundary controversy between the Governments of Panama and Costa Rica. Your Excellency reviews in some detail the action taken by the Executive and Legislative branches of the Government of Panama in the past regarding this boundary dispute and states that the Executive Power of Panama, because of previous declarations by Legislative Assemblies of Panama, by the Municipalities of the Republic, and by meetings of certain prominent citizens of Panama, is legally and morally unable to accept the boundary line between Panama and Costa Rica defined by the award of the Chief Justice of the United States and by the award of President Loubet.
Your Excellency, by instruction of the Government of Panama, then requests, on the ground that a direct settlement of the dispute between Panama and Costa Rica is impossible in view of the insistence [Page 217] of the Government of Costa Rica that the boundary determined by the two awards above referred to be accepted as the true boundary between the two Republics, that the following point, namely: “Is the White award consistent with the Arbitration Agreement of 1910, and is it or is it not valid for Panama?” be submitted to the arbitration of the permanent court of The Hague as provided by Article 38 of the Hague Convention for the peaceful settlement of international disputes. Your Excellency states that this request of the Government of the United States is made on the assumption that “the acts of the United States in the interests of Costa Rica have practically eliminated the last named Republic from the controversy, being replaced by the United States which has made the dispute its own and with which Panama has had and will have hereafter to come to an agreement by virtue of the expressed or tacit delegation of Costa Rica.” Your Excellency continues by alleging that this condition of fact “is universally known and needs no proof on which to be established.”
I desire first of all, in reply to Your Excellency’s suggestions, to state that the Government of the United States cannot admit the contention of Your Excellency that Costa Rica has been eliminated from this boundary controversy or that the United States has in any sense replaced it in the said dispute. The intervention of the United States in the controversy, as already made manifest to Your Excellency, was due to two causes—first, because the friendly mediation of this Government was accepted by both the Governments involved in the dispute at the time that hostilities between the two Republics broke out; second, because of the obligation of the United States by virtue of Article I of the Treaty of 1903 between the United States and Panama, to guarantee and maintain the independence of the Republic of Panama. The intervention of the United States in the dispute was due to these two causes alone, and has not resulted in a replacing by the United States of Costa Rica in this controversy, nor has such delegation ever been made by Costa Rica either expressly or tacitly. The boundary controversy is one, therefore, which directly concerns only the Governments of Costa Rica and Panama, although the Government of the United States, because of its special relations to Panama, as well as because of its loyal and impartial friendship to both Republics is interested in seeing a friendly and speedy settlement of the dispute reached.
In reply to the suggestion of Your Excellency that the question above quoted be referred to The Hague Tribunal for decision, I desire to call Your Excellency’s attention once more to the fact, already communicated to Your Excellency, that the Government of Costa Rica has officially advised the Government of the United States that it refuses to submit the controversy, or any portion of [Page 218] the controversy, to a new arbitration, since it considers the boundary dispute settled and the boundary itself defined by the arbitral award of the Chief Justice of the United States as provided by the Porras-Anderson Convention between the Governments of Panama and Costa Rica. Your Excellency is likewise aware that this Government, because of the obligations assumed with regard to Panama, has taken under its most careful consideration the award rendered by the Chief Justice of the United States, and all the facts connected with the rendering of that award, and after a most painstaking investigation has reached the conclusion that the contention of the Government of Costa Rica is both just and well-founded.
In view, therefore, of the refusal of the Government of Costa Rica to submit this controversy to a new arbitration, and in view of its insistence that the boundary line between the two Republics defined on the Atlantic side by the award of the Chief Justice of the United States and on the Pacific side by the award of President Loubet be accepted by the Government of Panama as the proper boundary between the two Republics, and that the jurisdiction over the territory on the Pacific side adjudicated by the latter award to Costa Rica and still retained by Panama be transferred without delay to Costa Rica, the Government of the United States believes that the boundary line so defined should be confirmed by the Government of Panama and the jurisdiction over the territory in question should be transferred in an orderly manner to the Government of Costa Rica.
The Government of the United States confidently expects that the Government of Panama will, without delay, in the manner provided by the Constitution of the Republic, take the necessary steps to appoint a member of the boundary commission, as stipulated in Article II of the Porras–Anderson Convention, charged with the duty of laying down the boundary line between the two Republics defined in the arbitral award of the Chief Justice of the United States, and that the Government of Panama will likewise make immediately arrangements with the Government of Costa Rica for the orderly transfer to that Republic of the jurisdiction over the territory determined as pertaining to Costa Rica by the arbitral awards above mentioned.
Accept [etc.]
- Not printed.↩