Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, 1931, Volume II

711.5412a/28

The Assistant Secretary of State ( Carr ) to the Swiss Minister ( Peter )

Washington , June 21, 1930.

Sir: I have the honor to refer to your note of June 20, 1928,² with which you were good enough, in reply to Mr. Kellogg’s note of April 2, 1928,² to submit for the consideration of this Government a draft treaty of arbitration and conciliation² which your Government was willing to enter into with the United States.

Reference is also made to recent informal discussions which you have carried on with officers of the Department. These discussions were based upon a draft of a treaty of arbitration and conciliation which had been drawn up in the Department for the purpose of substantially meeting the position of your Government and at the same time maintaining the essential characteristics of the treaties of arbitration and conciliation which have recently been entered into between the United States and a number of other countries.³

As a result of these informal conversations, the draft herewith enclosed² has been prepared with the idea of including, as far as possible, the particular requests which you have made. It is believed to embody provisions which will meet the points which you raised and which may be acceptable to your Government as well as to the Government of the United States.

With reference to the question whether, in juridical disputes, there should be a fixed order of precedence for the utilization of the methods of arbitration and conciliation, this Government feels that the better plan is to leave the two Governments free to decide at the time a given dispute arises whether they will submit it first to the conciliation commission provided for in the treaty or whether they will submit it to an arbitral tribunal. If conciliation should by any chance fail in such case, the parties would be bound thereupon to submit the dispute to arbitration.

Accept [etc.]

Wilbur J. Carr

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3. For correspondence concerning these negotiations, see Foreign Relations, 1929, vols, ii and iii , under Belgium, Bulgaria, Egypt, Estonia, Hungary, Luxemburg, Norway, Portugal, Rumania; ibid., 1930, vols, ii and iii , under China, Greece, Iceland, Latvia, the Netherlands.
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