ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

CHAPTER VIII

OTHER RECENT GENERAL WELFARE CON

VENTIONS

At a conference held in Washington in 1907 by plenipotentiaries of the Central American States of Costa Rica, Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, at which Representatives of the United States and Mexico were present, eight Treaties were signed to regulate the relations of these Central American Republics to each other. Perhaps the most important of these Conventions is one providing for the establishment of a Central American Court of Justice with full jurisdiction of all controversies between the States. The powers of the Court are defined as follows:

"Article I. The High Contracting Parties agree by the present Convention to constitute and maintain a permanent tribunal, which shall be called the "Central American Court of Justice," to which they bind themselves to submit all controversies or questions which may arise among them, of whatsoever nature and no matter what their origin may be, in case the respective Departments of Foreign Affairs should not have been able to reach an understanding."

This treaty differs from the Arbitration Treaties entered into between other nations in the very important particular that it gives the Court jurisdiction of controversies involving the "vital interests, the independence, or the honor" of the parties, as well as those "of a legal nature or relating to the interpretation of treaties." The other treaties are designed to promote good relations among the States, but without yielding their separate sovereignty in other respects.1

A Convention was concluded between all the American Republics except Venezuela, Hayti, and the Dominican Republic, at Rio de Janeiro August 13, 1906, establishing the status of naturalized citizens who again take up their residence in the 1 Senate Documents, 2d Session, 61st Congress, 48, 2399.

country of their origin, restoring them to citizenship in the country of their nativity after returning with intent to remain, and presuming such intent after a residence of two years.2

Another Convention was also signed at the same place on August 23, 1906, by Representatives of all the American Republics except Venezuela and Hayti providing for the establishment of an international Commission of Jurists, with duties prescribed as follows:

"Article I. There shall be established an international Commission of Jurists, composed of one representative from each of the signatory States, appointed by each of their respective Governments, which Commission shall meet for the purpose of preparing a draft of a Code of Private International Law and one of Public International Law, regulating the relations between the Nations of America. Two or more Governments may appoint a single representative, but such representative shall have but one vote.

This Convention does not purport to confer legislative powers on the Commission, or even the powers of plenipotentiaries to make a treaty subject to ratification by the governments, but only to make drafts to be submitted to their govern

ments.

A Convention was signed at Paris May 4, 1910, by Representatives of fourteen European States, the United States and Brazil for the repression of the circulation of obscene publications of which the following is a copy.

ARRANGEMENT RELATIVE TO THE REPRESSION OF THE CIRCULATION

OF OBSCENE PUBLICATIONS

The Governments of the Powers hereinbelow named, equally desirous of facilitating within the scope of their respective legislation, the mutual interchange of information with a view to tracing and repressing offences connected with obscene publications, have resolved to conclude an agreement to that end and have, in consequence, designated their plenipotentiaries who met in conference at Paris from April 18 to May 4, 1910, and agreed on the following provisions:

2 Senate Documents, 3rd Session 62nd Congress, 10, 125.

3 Id. 129.

Article I. Each one of the Contracting Powers undertakes to establish or designate an authority charged with the duty of

(1) Centralizing all information which may facilitate the tracing and repressing of facts constituting infringements of their municipal law as to obscene writings, drawings, pictures or articles, and the constitutive elements of which bear an international character.

(2) Supplying all information tending to check the importation of publications or articles referred to in the foregoing paragraph and also to insure or expedite their seizure all within the scope of municipal legislation.

(3) Communicating the laws that have already been or may subsequently be enacted in their respective States in regard to the object of the present Arrangement.

The Contracting Governments shall mutually make known to one another, through the Government of the French Republic, the authority established or designated in accordance with the present Article.

Art. 2. The authority designated in Article I shall be empowered to correspond directly with the like service established in each one of the other Contracting States.

Art. 3. The authority designated in Article I shall be bound, if there be nothing to the contrary in the municipal law of its country, to communicate bulletins of the sentences passed in said country to the similar authorities of all the other Contracting States in case of offences coming under Article 1.

Art. 4. Non-Signatory States shall be permitted to adhere to the present arrangement. They shall notify their intention to that effect by means of an instrument which shall be deposited in the archives of the Government of the French Republic. The said Government shall send through diplomatic channel a certified copy of the said instrument to each of the Contracting States and shall at the same time apprize them of the date of deposit.

Six months after that date the Arrangement shall go into effect throughout the territory of the adhering State which will thereby become a Contracting State.

The remaining articles numbered 5 to 8 are in the usual form for general conventions. It is signed by fourteen of the leading nations and bears date at Paris May 4, 1910.4

INTERNATIONAL AMERICAN CONFERENCES

Four conferences of the American Republics for the consideration of the affairs of the Western Hemisphere have been held. The first was convened at Washington on October 2, 1889, on the invitation of the United States, and was attended 4 Senate Documents, 3d Session 62nd Congress, 10, 133.

by representatives of Mexico, Haiti, and all the states of Central and South America. Subsequent conferences were held at the city of Mexico in October, 1901 to January, 1902, and in Rio de Janeiro in July, 1906. A fourth conference was held at Buenos Aires at which all the American nations except Bolivia were represented, at which the four following conventions were signed by the delegates of the twenty American republics. These conventions evidence the advancing sentiment of all the Americas on the subject of international relations and are as follows:

PECUNIARY CLAIMS CONVENTION

Their Excellencies the Presidents of the United States of America, Argentine Republic, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Salvador, Uruguay and Venezuela;

Being desirous that their respective countries may be represented at the Fourth International American Conference have sent the following delegates, duly authorized to approve the recommendations, resolutions, conventions, and treaties which may be advantageous to the interests of America;

(Here follows a list of the names of all the delegates)

Who, after having presented their credentials and the same having been found in due and proper form, have agreed upon the following Convention on Pecuniary Claims:

First. The High Contracting Parties agree to submit to arbitration all claims for pecuniary loss or damage which may be presented by their respective citizens and which cannot be amicably adjusted through diplomatic channels, when said claims are of sufficient importance to warrant the expense of arbitration.

The decision shall be rendered in accordance with the principles of international law.

Second. The High Contracting Parties agree to submit to the decision of the permanent Court of Arbitration of The Hague all controversies which are the subject matter of the present treaty, unless both parties agree to constitute a special jurisdiction.

If a case is submitted to the Permanent Court of The Hague, the High Contracting Parties accept the provisions of the treaty relating to the organization of that arbitral tribunal, to the procedure to be followed, and to the obligation to comply with the sentence.

Third. If it shall be agreed to constitute a special jurisdiction, there shall be prescribed in the convention by which this is determined the rules according to which the tribunal shall proceed, which shall have cognizance

of the questions involved in the claims referred to in article 1 of the

present treaty.

Fourth. The present treaty shall come into force immediately after the 31st of December, 1912, when the treaty on pecuniary claims, signed at Mexico on January 31, 1902,and extended by the treaty signed at Rio de Janeiro on August 13, 1916, expires.

It shall remain in force indefinitely, as well for the nations which shall then have ratified it as those which shall ratify it subsequently.

The ratifications shall be transmitted to the Government of the Argentine Republic, which shall communicate them to the other contracting parties.

Fifth. Any of the nations ratifying the present treaty may denounce it, on its own part, by giving two year's notice in writing, in advance, of its intention so to do.

This notice shall be transmitted to the Government of the Argentine Republic and through its intermediation to the other contracting parties. Sixth. The treaty of Mexico shall continue in force after December 31, 1912, as to any claims which may, prior to that date, have been submitted to arbitration under its provisions.

In witness whereof the plenipotentiaries and delegates sign this convention and affix to it the scal of the Fourth International American Conference.

Made and signed in the city of Buenos Aires, on the 11th day of August, in the year 1910, in the Spanish, English, Portuguese, and French languages, and filed in the ministry of foreign affairs of the Argentine Republic, in order that certified copies may be taken to be forwarded through the appropriate diplomatic channels to each one of the signatory nations.

(Signatures) 5

CONVENTION CONCERNING LITERARY AND ARTISTIC COPYRIGHT

(Introductory recitals omitted)

First. The signatory States acknowledge and protect the rights of literary and artistic property in conformity with the stipulations of the present convention.

Second. In the expression "literary and artistic works" are included books, writings, pamphlets of all kinds, whatever may be the subject of which they treat, and whatever the number of their pages; dramatic or dramatico-musical works; choreographic and musical compositions, with or without words; drawings, paintings, sculpture, engravings; photographic works; astronomical or geographical globes; plans, sketches or plaster works relating to geography, geology or topography, architecture or any other science; and, finally, all productions that can be published by any means of impression or reproduction.

5 Senate Documents, 3rd Session 62nd Congress, 10, 345.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »