Editorial Note
On April 17, 1951 President Truman gave his approval to United States acceptance of the results of the Torquay negotiations. On April 21 the United States and all of the Contracting Parties of GATT except four signed at Torquay a Final Act which authenticated other legal instruments which were annexed thereto, embodying the results of the conference. One of these, the Torquay Protocol itself, set forth the schedules of tariff concessions to be annexed to the General Agreement which embodied the results of the actual tariff negotiations carried on at Torquay from September 28, 1950; the other two provided for acceptance by the Contracting Parties of the accession of new participating governments to GATT, and a “Declaration” which provided for the extension until January 1, 1954 of concessions which had been negotiated at the Geneva and Annecy Conferences.
[Page 1260]The Presidential Proclamation giving effect to the Torquay Protocol and related instruments for the United States was issued on June 2, 1951. The Torquay Protocol entered into effect for the United States on June 6, 1951.
For texts of the Final Act of April 21, 1951 signed at Torquay, and annexed instruments, see 3 UST (part 1), pages 588 ff., or Department of State Treaties and Other International Acts Series (TIAS) 2420. With regard to the Torquay Protocol’s schedules of tariff concessions certain of the texts are authentic only in the French language; these are in 3 UST (part 2). For text of the Presidential Proclamation of June 2, 1951, see 65 Stat. 612.
As indicated in the annex printed with the April 9 memorandum to the President, page 1247, the United States Government made representations on the political level to France in seeking a successful negotiation both on the Article XXVIII issue and on obtaining new concessions; and to certain Commonwealth countries in an effort to break the negotiating impasse that developed with regard to imperial preferences. The documentation that follows concerns these matters.