318.115Un3/—: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Consul at San José (Chase)
21. Department informed that Costa Rican law of November 25, 1913, providing for nationalization of certain Hydrocarbons including petroleum appears to be interpreted by decree of April 18, 1914, and by the granting of certain concessionary rights by Costa Rica, to apply to lands whose titles were acquired from nation prior to date of law mentioned and that operations threatened under such interpretation imperil subsoil rights of American citizens in lands so acquired.13
[Page 842]Request Foreign Office to advise you whether Costa Rican Government interprets this law to have the retroactive effect mentioned, so as to provide for separation of subsoil rights in petroleum from surface rights to lands and this without compensation to owners of lands whose titles were acquired from nation prior to date of law.
In this connection you will please refer to provisions of Article 20 of the Constitution of Costa Rica to effect that private property is inviolable and shall not be appropriated without due compensation. Refer also to understanding of Government of United States that Article 18 of Mining Law of 1868 provides that in future only ledges, placers, or deposits of metals, half metals, or precious stones may be denounced and conceded in lands owned by private parties and that Article 505 of the Civil Code of 1888 has been in force since that year and provides that “the rights of ownership are not limited to the surface of the land but extend by accession from or upon the surface and also downward. Save the exceptions established by the law or by convention, the proprietor may establish all the constructions or qualifications which he wishes and also construct underneath as he deems fit, and extract from those excavations all the products encountered.”
In making this inquiry, Department does not desire to be understood as withdrawing its support to any American concession in so far as it does not interfere with petroleum and other underground rights already vested in other American interests under the Jaws of Costa Rica prior to 1913. Make it clear that Department’s purpose is to obtain view of Costa Rican Government as to important laws of that country which may affect American interests and that Government of the United States should not be understood as discriminatory in favor of or against any responsible American citizens who have interests in Costa Rica, but is only concerned as, of course, is the Government of Costa Rica in the maintenance of the lawfully acquired rights of such American citizens.
- On Aug. 9 the United Fruit Co. informed the Department through its attorneys that it believed its subsurface rights were being imperiled by the Pinto-Greulich concession. Letter not printed.↩