Doc. No. 15 bis (G).
Proposed Amendments
Article 13
1. Italian citizens who were domiciled on June 10, 1940 in territory transferred by Italy to another State under the present Treaty shall, except as provided in the following paragraphs, become citizens with full civil and political rights of the State to which the territory is transferred and shall enjoy all civil and political rights enjoyed by other nationals of the same state. Upon becoming citizens of the State concerned they shall lose their Italian citizenship.
2. All persons mentioned in paragraph 1 over the age of eighteen years (or married persons whether under or over that age) whose customary language is Italian shall be entitled to opt for Italian citizenship within a period of one year from the coming into force of the present Treaty. Any person so opting shall retain Italian citizenship and shall not be considered to have acquired the citizenship of the State to which the territory is transferred.
The option of the husband shall not constitute an option on the part of the wife. Option on the part of the father, or, if the father is not alive, on the part of the mother, shall, however, automatically include all unmarried children under the age of eighteen years.
3. Persons coming under the provisions of paragraph 2 who were domiciled on June 10, 1940 in territory transferred by Italy to Yugoslavia [Page 142] under the present Treaty, shall have the right to opt for citizenship of the Free Territory of Trieste, under the conditions laid down in paragraph 2.
4. Conditions governing the exercise of the right of option laid down in paragraphs 2 and 3 and the settlement of any disputes which may arise in this connection shall be the subject of an agreement to be concluded within three months from the date of the coming into force of the present Treaty under the auspices of the four Ambassadors.
5. The State to which the territory is transferred may require those who take advantage of the option to move to Italy within a year from the date when the option was exercised.
U.S. proposal:
6. The State to which the territory is transferred shall take all measures necessary to secure to all persons within the territory, without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion, the enjoyment of human rights and of the fundamental freedoms, including freedom of expression, of press and publication, of religious worship, of political opinion and of public meeting.
7. The State to which the territory is ceded shall take all necessary measures to ensure that the Italian speaking nationals in its territory shall receive the same treatment and the same guarantees in law and in fact as are enjoyed by other nationals, including the right to establish, manage, and control at their own expense, charitable, religious or social institutions, schools or other educational establishments, freely to use their own language, to practice their religion therein. No restriction shall be imposed on the free use by the said nationals of their own language whether in private or business relations in matters concerning religion in the press or in publications of any kind or in public meetings in the law courts.
In regard to public education, the State, to which the territory is ceded shall grant the communes where a considerable number of the inhabitants are Italian speaking the necessary facilities to ensure that in the elementary schools the children of such nationals shall be taught in their own language.
All these arrangements, completed or in process of completion, constitute not merely the political undertaking given by the Italian Government to solve the special problem of the Upper Adige, but they also reflect the wider hopes and more generous views of the Italian people on the general problem of the protection of the racial minorities which, as a result of the territorial status quo in the Upper Adige and the proposed amputations to be made in other sectors, will be left on one or other side of the frontiers of the Peninsula. [Page 143] They will thus correspond to the ideal of protection of human rights which is entirely consistent with the traditions of our Risorgimento. This ideal, forgotten by Fascism, has now been revived by the new Italian democracy in a spirit of reciprocity which the Government of the Republic will faithfully observe in its dealings with minorities and in the protection and defence of such Italian minorities as may be left on the other side of the frontier.
It should once more be stated that the Italian Government intends to conduct its relations with the Austrian people according to this special principle and in a general spirit of solidarity calculated to pave the way for far-reaching economic agreements. And this, notwithstanding the fact that, from September 1943 to the last days of the war, ten divisions, mainly composed of Austrians, operating in Italy, four Austrian divisions operating in the Balkans and in the isles, and S.S. police detachments put up a fierce fight against the Italian regular, partisan and civilian resistance forces, thereby largely adding to the sufferings and sacrifices of a reborn Italy.