718.1915/548

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 notes of July 29, and July 30,14 referring to the boundary dispute between Panama and Costa Rica, in which you assert that since both Panama and Costa Rica are signatory members of the Treaty of Versailles, there exists between you, by virtue of provisions of Article 13 of that Treaty, a pact providing for obligatory arbitration of questions concerning the interpretation of treaties and matters of international law, which, you state, are precisely those involved in the present controversy between Panama and Costa Rica.

Although you did not specifically request the Department of State to communicate your notes above mentioned to the Government of Costa Rica, nevertheless, in view of the fact that the suggestion advanced by you, referred to above, had not, so far as I am aware, already been communicated to Costa Rica, I took pleasure in doing so.

The Government of Costa Rica, in advising this Government of its opinion regarding the suggestion of the Government of Panama, as thus communicated to it, states that it cannot consent to submit to the League of Nations questions to which Your Excellency refers for the reasons which it states are as follows:

a.
Because at the present moment the matter is being handled under the friendly mediation of the United States of America requested by Panama and readily accepted by Costa Rica, which mediation [Page 224] was also accepted and approved by the Council of the League of Nations as stated by the Secretary General to the Department of Foreign Relations of Costa Rica in a cablegram sent in March, last.
b.
Because according to the stipulations of the Treaty of Versailles, the provisions relative to compulsory arbitration referred to a certain class of disputes that may arise among the signatories subsequently to the Treaty, but in no wise to any of the disputes that came up before the Treaty existed. Now the determination of the boundary line is of very old standing and it has been finally settled by the Loubet and White awards and by the Anderson–Porras Treaty, which all antedate the Treaty of Versailles.
c.
Because as previously stated, every boundary dispute between the two countries was finally settled by the Awards and Treaty above mentioned. Costa Rica does not admit, and the Government of the United States so considered on various occasions in the course of this mediation, that there could be any doubt as to the validity of the White Award. At this present moment the Government of Costa Rica is not discussing that point of law, but the point that the only question now pending is the execution of those international engagements, namely, the physical marking of the boundary line and the surrender of jurisdiction in the part of the territory that is wrongfully held by the civilian authorities of Panama.

In concluding its communication to the Government of the United States, the Government of Costa Rica likewise makes the following statement:

“Señor Garay claims that under Article XIII of the Treaty of Versailles, Costa Rica and Panama are compelled to seek the compulsory arbitration therein provided; but Señor Garay forgets that that arbitration exists, that the boundary question has already been settled twice by that method and that, therefore, there is no occasion to admit of a never ending process of arbitration of the same matter, as, if it were so, international disputes would never come to an end. The Treaty of Versailles was signed for the purpose of strengthening the principles of international law and the good faith of the countries in their relations, and in no wise to afford pretexts for and means of evading assumed obligations.”

Accept [etc.]

Charles E. Hughes
  1. Notes not printed.