Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1934, The American Republics, Volume V

Executive Agreement Series No. 57

Protocol Between the United States of America and Mexico Regarding General Claims, Signed at Mexico City, April 24, 1934⁵

Mexico City, April 24, 1934

Josephus Daniels, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Government of Mexico, and José Manuel Puig Casauranc, Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the United Mexican States, duly authorized, have agreed on behalf of their two Governments to conclude the following Protocol:

Whereas, It is the desire of the two Governments to settle and liquidate as promptly as possible those claims of each Government against the other which are comprehended by, and which have been filed in pursuance of, the General Claims Convention between the two Governments, concluded on September 8, 1923;

Whereas, It is not considered expedient to proceed, at the present time, to the formal arbitration of the said claims in the manner provided in that Convention;

Whereas, It is considered to be conducive to the best interests of the two Governments, to preserve the status quo of the General Claims Convention above mentioned and the Convention extending the duration thereof, which latter was concluded on June 18, 1932, as well as the agreement relating to agrarian claims under Article I of the additional Protocol of June 18, 1932;

Whereas, It is advisable to endeavor to effect a more expeditious and more economical disposition of the claims, either by means of an en bloc settlement or a more simplified method of adjudication, and

Whereas, In the present state of development of the numerous claims the available information is not such as to permit the two Governments to appraise their true value with sufficient accuracy to permit of the successful negotiation of an en bloc settlement thereof at the present time;

Therefore, It is agreed that:

First.—The two Governments will proceed to an informal discussion of the agrarian claims now pending before the General Claims Commission, with a view to making an adjustment thereof that shall be consistent with the rights and equities of the claimants and the rights and obligations of the Mexican Government, as provided by the General Claims Protocol of June 18, 1932. Pending such discussion no agrarian claims will be presented to the Commissioners referred to in Clause Third nor, in turn, to the Umpire referred to in Clause Fifth of this Protocol; but memorials of cases not yet memorialized may be filed in order to regularize the awards made upon the agreed adjustments.

Consequently, the subsequent provisions of this Protocol shall apply to agrarian claims only insofar as they do not conflict with the status thereof, as exclusively fixed by the terms of the agreed Article I of the additional protocol to the extension of the General Claims Convention, signed June 18, 1932.

Second.—The two Governments shall proceed, in accordance with the provisions of clause Sixth below, promptly to complete the written pleadings and briefs in the remaining unpleaded and incompletely pleaded cases.

Third.—Each Government shall promptly designate, from among its own nationals, a Commissioner, who shall be an outstanding jurist and whose function it shall be to appraise, on their merits, as rapidly as possible, the claims of both Governments which have already been fully pleaded and briefed and those in which the pleadings and briefs shall be completed in accordance herewith.

Fourth.—Six months before the termination of the period herein agreed upon for the completion of the pleadings and briefs referred to in Clause Sixth or at an earlier time should they so agree, the said Commissioners shall meet, at a place to be agreed upon by them, for the purpose of reconciling their appraisals. They shall, as soon as possible, and not later than six months from the date of the completion of the pleadings and briefs, submit to the two Governments a joint report of the results of their conferences, indicating those cases in which agreement has been reached by them with respect to the merits and the amount of liability, if any, in the individual cases and also those cases in which they shall have been unable to agree with respect to the merits or the amount of liability, or both.

Fifth.—The two Governments shall, upon the basis of such joint report, and with the least possible delay, conclude a convention for the final disposition of the claims, which convention shall take one or the other of the two following forms, namely, first, an agreement for an en bloc settlement of the claims wherein there shall be stipulated the net amount to be paid by either Government and the terms upon which payment shall be made; or, second, an agreement for the disposition of the claims upon their individual merits. In this latter event, the two above-mentioned Commissioners shall be required to record their agreements with respect to individual claims and the bases upon which their conclusions shall have been reached, in the respective cases.

The report shall be accepted, by the convention to be concluded by the two Governments, as final and conclusive dispositions of those cases. With respect to those cases in which the Commissioners shall not have been able to reach agreements, the two Governments shall, by the said convention, agree that the pleadings and briefs in such cases, together with the written views of the two Commissioners concerning the merits of the respective claims, be referred to an Umpire, whose written decisions shall also be accepted by both Governments as final and binding. All matters relating to the designation of an Umpire, time within which his decisions should be rendered and general provisions relating to his work shall be fixed in a Convention to be negotiated under provisions of this Clause.

Sixth.—The procedure to be followed in the development of the pleadings and briefs, which procedure shall be scrupulously observed by the Agents of the two Governments, shall be the following:

(a) The time allowed for the completion of the pleadings and briefs shall be two years counting from a date hereafter to be agreed upon by the two Governments by an exchange of notes, which shall not be later than November 1, 1934.

(b) The pleadings and briefs of each Government shall be filed at the Embassy of the other Government.

(c) The pleadings and briefs to be filed shall be limited in number to four, namely, Memorial, Answer, Brief and Reply Brief. Only three copies of each need be presented to the other Agent, but four additional copies shall be retained by the filing Agency for possible use in future adjudication. Each copy of Memorial, Answer and Brief shall be accompanied by a copy of all evidence filed with the original thereof. The pleadings and briefs, which may be in either English or Spanish at the option of the filing Government, shall be signed by the respective Agents or properly designated substitutes.

(d) With the Memorial the claimant Government shall file all the evidence on which it intends to reply. With the Answer the respondent Government shall file all the evidence upon which it intends to rely. No further evidence shall be filed by either side except such evidence, with the Brief, as rebuts evidence filed with the Answer. Such evidence shall be strictly limited to evidence in rebuttal and there shall be explained at the beginning of the Brief the alleged justification for the filing thereof. If the other side desires to object to such filing, its views may be set forth in the beginning of the Reply Brief, and the Commissioners, or the Umpire, as the case may require, shall decide the point, and if it is decided that the evidence is not in rebuttal to evidence filed with the Answer, the additional evidence shall be entirely disregarded in considering the merits of the claim.

The Commissioners may at any time order the production of further evidence.

(e) In view of the desire to reduce the number of pleadings and briefs to a minimum in the interest of economy of time and expense, it shall be the obligation of both Agents fully and clearly to state in their Memorials the contention of the claimant Government with respect to both the factual bases of the claims in question and the legal principles upon which the claims are predicated and, in the Answer, the contentions of the respondent Government with regard to the facts and legal principles upon which the defense of the case rests. In cases in which Answers already filed do not sufficiently meet this provision so as to afford the claimant Government an adequate basis for preparing its legal Brief with full general knowledge of the factual and legal defenses of the respondent Government, it shall have the right to file a Counter Brief within thirty days following the date of filing the Reply Brief.

(f) For the purposes of the above pleadings and briefs, as well as the appraisals and decisions of the two Commissioners and the decisions of the Umpire, above mentioned, the provisions of the General Claims Convention of September 8, 1923, shall be considered as fully effective and binding upon the two Governments, except insofar as concerns the matter of procedure, which shall be that provided for herein.

(g) Whenever practicable, cases of a particular class shall be grouped for memorializing and/or for briefing.

(h) In order that the two Agents may organize their work in the most advantageous manner possible and in order that the two-year period allowed for pleadings and briefs may be utilized in a manner which shall be most equitable to both sides, each Agent shall, within thirty days from the beginning of the two-year pleading period, submit to the other Agent a tentative statement showing the total number of Memorials and Briefs such Agent intends to file. Six months after the beginning of the two-year pleading period, the two Agents shall respectively submit in the same manner statements setting out definitely by name and docket number the claims in which it is proposed to complete the pleadings and briefs, indicating those in which they intend to combine cases in the manner indicated in paragraph (g) above. The number of pleadings and briefs so indicated shall not, except by later agreement between the two Governments be exceeded by more than ten percent.

(i) In order to enable the Agencies to distribute their work equally over the two-year pleading period, each Agency shall be under the obligation to file its Memorials at approximately equal intervals during the first seventeen months of the two-year period, thus allowing the remaining seven months of the period for the completion of the pleadings and briefs in the last case memorialized. The same obligation shall attach with respect to the filing of the pleadings and briefs referred to in paragraph (k) below.

(j) The time to be allowed for filing Answers shall be seventy days from the date of filing Memorials. The time to be allowed for filing Briefs shall be seventy days from the date of filing the Answers. The time to be allowed for filing Reply Briefs shall be seventy days from the date of filing the Briefs.

(k) In those cases in which some pleadings or briefs were filed with the General Claims Commission before the date of signature hereof, the Agency which has the right to file the next pleading or brief shall be allowed to determine when that document shall be filed, taking into consideration the necessity of complying with the provisions of paragraph (i) above.

(l) In counting the seventy-day periods mentioned in paragraph (j) above, no deductions shall be made for either Sundays or holidays. The date of filing the above described pleadings and briefs shall be considered to be the date upon which they shall be delivered at the Embassy of the other Government. If the due date shall fall on Sunday or a legal holiday, the pleading or brief shall be filed upon the next succeeding business day. The two Governments shall, for this purpose, instruct their respective Embassies to receive and give receipts for such pleadings and briefs any weekday between the hours of 10 and 16 (4 p.m.) except on the following legal holidays of both countries:

Of the United States	Of Mexico
January 1	January 1
February 22	February 5
May 30	May 1
July 4	May 5
First Monday in September	September 14
	September 15
Last Thursday in November	September 16
	October 12
December 25	November 20
	December 25
	December 31

(m) In view of the herein prescribed limitations upon the time allowed for the completion of the work of the Agencies and the Commissioners, it is recognized that the success of this simplified plan of procedure depends fundamentally upon the prompt and regular filing of the pleadings and briefs in accordance with the provisions of this Protocol. It is agreed, therefore, that any pleading or brief which shall be filed more than thirty days after the due date for the filing thereof, shall be disregarded by the Commissioners and the Umpire, and that the respective case shall be considered by them upon the pleadings and briefs preceding the tardy pleadings and briefs, unless, by agreement of the two Governments, the continued pleading of the respective case shall be resumed.

(n) It shall not be necessary to present original evidence but all documents hereafter submitted as evidence shall be certified as true and complete copies of the original if they be such. In the event that any particular document filed is not a true and complete copy of the original, that fact shall be so stated in the certificate.

(o) The complete original of any document filed, either in whole or in part, shall be retained in the Agency filing the document and shall be made available for inspection by any authorized representative of the Agent of the other side.

(p) Where the original of any document or other proof is filed at any Government office on either side, and cannot be conveniently withdrawn, and no copy of such document is in the possession of the Agent of the Government desiring to present the same to the Commissioners in support of the allegations set out in his pleadings or briefs, he shall notify the Agent of the other Government in writing of his desire to inspect such document. Should such inspection be refused, then the action taken in response to the request to inspect, together with such reasons as may be assigned for the action taken, shall be reported to the Commissioners and, in turn, to the Umpire mentioned in Clause Fifth of this Protocol, so that due notice thereof may be taken.

Done in duplicate in Mexico, D. F. in the English and Spanish languages this twenty fourth day of the month of April one thousand nine hundred and thirty four.

Josephus Daniels

[seal]

Puig

[seal]

5. In English and Spanish; Spanish text not printed. Ratified by the President, January 14, 1985; ratified by Mexico, November 23, 1934; ratifications exchanged at Washington, February 1, 1935; proclaimed by the President, February 1, 1935.