811.623 Florida/12
The Secretary of State to the Italian Ambassador (De Martino)
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of July 18, 1928, in further relation to a purported conflict between a Statute of the State of Florida and existing treaty provisions between the United States and Italy in which you state that you are [Page 119] glad to know that your Government would not suffer any prejudice through a determination of this question by the appropriate Federal judicial authorities of the United States and that this is exactly the position which you desired to make clear in your note of April 30, namely, that the adjudication by the Federal Courts could not be accepted by the Italian Government as a decision on a claim of right to be settled between the two Governments.
In reply I have the honor to inform Your Excellency that it was the purpose of my note of June 8, 1928, to convey to Your Excellency’s Government the assurance that the Federal Courts constitute a particularly competent and impartial forum for the determination of questions of this nature. It was not intended, however, to pass upon the question of the scope, under international law, of a decision of a local tribunal interpretative of international contractual obligations, since it was considered that the necessity for discussing this question need only arise in the event of a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States adverse to the contentions of your Government in this case.
Accept [etc.]