500.A15/1121: Telegram
The Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 18—4:35 p.m.]
27. Department’s 6, November 17, 5 p.m. The sentence added by you to our draft reads as follows: “Thereupon the other high contracting parties shall promptly advise with each other as to the situation thus presented.” Taken in conjunction with the preceding sentence of paragraph B, it would appear that the high contracting party seeking to modify its treaty obligations would be excluded from the exchange of views. This phraseology, a modification of that used in article 21 of the London Treaty, is applicable in that treaty to two powers only and the “new construction” leading to invocation of the escape clause can be initiated only by a nonsignatory. I submit for your consideration that in the present instance we are dealing with what is intended to be a universal treaty or one which in any case will have a large number of signatories. Under this treaty, problems arising from action taken by nonsignatory states will be the exception and not the rule. Under the proposed phraseology it [Page 193] is possible to envisage a situation in which the state modifying a clause or clauses of the treaty is the only state in the world excluded from consultation about this condition. If we maintain the word “other,” state A which has announced its intention of modifying the treaty as a result of some action of state B, the initiator of the trouble, will nevertheless participate. It may seem to you more practical to suppress the word “other,” thus providing consultations with all interested states.
In view of this inquiry we will postpone circulating the resolution until we can hear from you on this point. We will then advise regarding the date of circulation.