File No. 500.A2a/591a.
The Secretary of State to the Minister of Nicaragua.
Washington, January 19, 1911.
Sir: On October 18, 1909, the Secretary of State transmitted an identic circular note1 to the powers participating in the London Naval Conference2 proposing that the Prize Court Convention be modified in such a way as to remove the constitutional objection to it on the part of the United States. Briefly stated, the objection to the convention in its actual [original] form consisted in the fact that an appeal might be taken from a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and that the judgment of the Supreme Court might be modified or reversed on appeal. The Department was willing to submit the question involved in the judicial determination to the examination of the International Prize Court and to give effect to its findings provided the findings were in the form of an award of damages, leaving untouched or unaffected the validity of the judgment within the jurisdiction of the United States. The proposal of the United States was that the proceeding before the prize court should be de novo, and that the question involved in the controversy should be tried and determined both as to the law and the fact without reference to the national judgment.
As a result of negotiations, particularly with the original proposers of the Prize Court Convention, it was determined to draw up an additional protocol to be signed by the signatories of the original convention, to be ratified by them and the ratifications of the additional protocol and the original convention to be deposited at one and the same time at The Hague. The additional protocol was to form an integral part of the original convention and the convention was to be modified in accordance with the provisions of the additional protocol. As modified the Department believed that this Government could accept the prize court and participate in its beneficent operations.
On May 24, 1910, the Netherlands minister of foreign affairs transmitted the additional protocol to the signatories of the original convention with the request that their diplomatic representatives accredited to The Hague should be instructed to sign the protocol during the month of September, and on September 19, 1910, the protocol was signed by the United States, Germany, Argentine, Austria-Hungary, Denmark, Spain, France, Great Britain, Japan, Norway, Netherlands, and Sweden. Twenty-eight of the thirty-four signatories of the Prize Court Convention have already approved the protocol. The Dutch minister of foreign affairs stated that he had received no intimation of any objection to the additional protocol and he believed that it would be approved by the various signatories of the original convention during the course of the year.
The Department, however, is unwilling to transmit the additional protocol to the Senate, as it desires to do at the present session, or to request the approval of the original convention, unless informed [Page 249] that all the signatories of the original convention have either approved the protocol or have expressed their intention to do so in the very near future, as the ratification of the protocol and the original convention, as well as the Declaration of London which supplements the original Prize Court Convention, would fail of their purpose unless the protocol were ratified by the signatories to the original convention. This Government is, however, exceedingly anxious to cooperate in the establishment and operation of the International Court of Prize, but feels that it must be assured of the acceptance of its proposed modification as set forth in the additional protocol before it can take any steps toward securing the approval of the instruments by the Senate.
Copies of the draft of the additional protocol and of the circular note of the Netherlands Government of May 24, 1910, are inclosed for the information of your Government, and I have the honor to ask that you will at once bring to its attention the matter of the adhesion of the Republic of Nicaragua to the additional protocol, and urge upon it the importance which this Government attaches to Nicaragua’s acceptance of the additional protocol which will render the cooperation of the United States possible.
The Department will be gratified if you could receive by telegraph the advices of your Government as to its disposition to accept the protocol.
Accept, etc.,
- Foreign Relations 1910, p. 597.↩
- The identic circular note was not presented to Nicaragua on account of the disturbed conditions in that State at the time. That omission is cured by the note here printed.↩