500.A14/798
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Straus)
Sir: The receipt is acknowledged of the Embassy’s despatch No. 2881 of July 3, 1936, enclosing a copy of a note to you, dated June 30, 1936, from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stating the condition on which that Ministry accepts the deposit of the instrument of ratification by the United States of the Convention for the Supervision of International Trade in Arms and Ammunition and Implements of War, signed at Geneva on June 17, 1925.
This Department concurs in the view of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the instrument of ratification by the United States cannot be counted as one of the required fourteen ratifications necessary to put the Convention into effect until the governments to whose ratification the United States ratification is made subject shall have ratified the Convention and deposited their instruments of ratification, it being understood that the same principle applies with respect to the ratifications of all governments which are made subject to ratification by other governments. The Department recognizes and desires to make of record the fact that ratifications of the Convention depending upon the fulfillment of conditions can have no part in making the Convention effective unless and until those conditions shall have been met.
Very truly yours,
[Failing ratification by Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Convention for the Supervision of the International Trade in Arms and Ammunition and in Implements of War did not come into effect for the United States.]