711.5812/33
The Swedish Minister (Wallenberg) to the Secretary of State
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the note of January 19th, in which Your Excellency has been kind enough-to inform me, in answer to my note of November 9 [6], 1922, that the Government of the United States would be pleased to conclude with the Government of Sweden an Arbitration Convention, similar to the one concluded between the two Governments on May 2, 1908.
Your Excellency further states that, should the Government of Sweden desire to propose any provisions differing from those of the Convention of 1908, Your Excellency would be pleased to receive and consider them, as well as to be informed concerning the views of the Government of Sweden with respect to the conclusion of an agreement of the character of the convention of 1908.
In view of the foregoing, and acting upon instructions from my Government, I beg to transmit herewith the proposed text,6 in the French language, of a new treaty of Arbitration, drafted, in its essential parts, upon the text of the previous Convention of 1908, but provided with the following modifications:
In Article I of the Treaty of 1908, it was stipulated that differences of a legal nature or relating to the interpretation of treaties existing between the two Contracting Parties, and which it might not have been possible to settle by diplomacy, should, with certain specified reservations, be referred to the Permanent Court of Arbitration established at the Hague by the Convention of July 29, 1899.7 As, however, the new Permanent International Tribunal, established at the Hague through the protocol of the 16th of December 1920,8 presents a medium, the use of which seems to offer, in several respects, great advantages, it would seem appropriate that, in the new Convention which may be concluded, the said Tribunal be indicated as the forum for the settlement of differences mentioned in the Convention.
Thus, in Article I
“… la Cour permanente de Justice internationale à la Haye …”
has been substituted for
“… la Cour permanente d’arbitrage établie par la Convention du 29 juillet 1899.”
This modification necessitates a certain amendment of the original article II in so far as in the Special Agreement to be concluded between the Contracting Parties in each individual case, no reference to the powers of the Arbitrators nor to the periods to be fixed for the formation of the Arbitral Tribunal or the several stages of procedure, will be needed.
Thus, such reference has been excluded in the new Article II.
With regard to the stipulation relating to the duration of the Convention, the text proposed by the Swedish Government is in accordance with the suggestion made in Your Excellency’s note with the exception only that while Your Excellency has pleased to propose the duration of the new Convention for an initial period of five years and for continuance in force indefinitely thereafter until the expiration of one year after a notice of termination shall have been given by either party, the Swedish Government suggests that the last mentioned period be only six months.
With renewed assurances [etc.]
- Not printed.↩
- Malloy, Treaties, 1776–1909, vol. ii, p. 2016.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1920, vol. i, p. 17.↩