702.1211/1128

Mexican Executive Decree Suspending Commercial Relations with the State of New York 64

[Translation]

Whereas, some authorities of the State of New York have established the violative precedent that any country which does not maintain; official relations with the Government of the United States of North America lacks personality before the Courts of the State mentioned to require fulfillment of obligations contracted with it by persons or companies domiciled in said State; yet, on the other hand, that unrecognized country may be brought into court as subject of a cause and its properties embargoed (attached) by persons or companies, in disregard of its rights and sovereignty and in disregard, also, of the prerogatives which pertain to it pursuant to International Law; and

Whereas, Mexico is included in the foregoing case, as shown recently on an occasion when in seeking the fulfillment of a contract or purchase and sale of ships, personality to prosecute an action was denied on the ground that its Government had not been recognized by the Government of the United States of America, and that, subsequently, by virtue of a claim made by the Oliver Trading Company against the National Railways of Mexico, the New York Courts were not only declared to have jurisdiction to sit in the premises but they ordered the sequestration of goods and chattels belonging to the Nation:

Now, Therefore:

The Executive in my charge has resolved that all the dependencies of the Federal Government shall suspend all manner of commercial operations or contracts of whatsoever kind with persons or associations domiciled in the State of New York; and that Governors of the Mexican States be urged to issue similar resolutions.

Your Secretariat is informed in respect of the foregoing to the end that it may, in its turn, advise all the dependencies and departments of the Federal Government and the Governments of the Mexican States.

Effective Suffrage. No Re-Election.


The President of the Republic,
A. Obregón
  1. Transmitted by the Chargé in Mexico as an enclosure to his despatch no. 6576, Nov. 2, 1922. Published in El Universal, Nov. 1, 1922.