815.0145/2
The Minister in Honduras (Erwin) to
the Secretary of State
No. 79
Tegucigalpa, November 4, 1937.
[Received
November 12.]
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt of the Department’s Instruction No. 17 of October 19, 1937, file
No. 815.0145/1, regarding the provision of Article 153 of the Honduran
Constitution of 1936, relative to territorial waters, and to enclose
herewith a copy of a Note forwarded to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
today, reserving all rights on the part of the United States Government
with regard to territorial waters extending beyond the usually accepted
three-mile limit.
Respectfully yours,
[Page 597]
[Enclosure]
The American Minister (Erwin) to the Honduran Acting Minister for Foreign
Affairs (Laínez
Espinosa)3
No. 16
Tegucigalpa, November 4,
1937.
Excellency: I have the honor to refer to
Article 153 of the Honduran Constitution of 1936, which reads in
part as follows:
“To the State appertains the full dominion, inalienable and
inprescriptible, over the waters of the territorial seas to
a distance of twelve kilometers from the lowest tide mark
…”4
In this connection, I have the honor to inform Your Excellency that I
have received instructions from the Acting Secretary of State of my
Government to the effect that the Government of the United States of
America reserves all rights of whatever nature with regard to any
effects upon American interests from an enforcement of this
Constitutional provision so far as it asserts that the territorial
waters of Honduras extend beyond the three-mile limit, namely, a
distance of three nautical miles from the line of mean low
water.
Accept [etc.]
