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Executive Agreements Relating to Panama
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2017
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- Copyright © by the American Society of International Law 1943
References
1 H. J. Resolution 14, Public Law 48, 78th Cong., Chap. 92,1st Sess.; Senate Reports 201 (2 parts), 1720 (2 parts); House Report 271; Hearings, Foreign Affairs Committee, March 16, 1943.
2 Idem
3 Idem.
4 Idem.
5 State Department Bulletin, Vol. VI, No. 152, p. 448. For these sites the United States pays an annual rental of $1 for all the public lands used, $50 per hectare for private property, and $10,000 for the Rio Hato area. Id. pp. 451–452. This agreement may be said to result from consultations provided for in Arts. II and X of the Treaty of 1936 with Panama.
6 The three subjects of the agreement are mentioned in State Department Bulletin, Vol. VI, No. 152, which adds: “The agreements reached on these three points will be submitted to the Congress of the United States for approval.” Id. p. 448.
7 Congressional Record, April 13, 1943, pp. 3383–3384, April 26, p. 3800; Message of President Roosevelt, supra.
8 The debates will be found in the Congressional Record, daily edition, Nov. 30, 1942, p. 9511, Dec. 3,1942, p. 9586, Dec. 4,1942, p. 9641, April 13,1943, p. 3392, April 26,1943, p. 3798, May 3, 1943, p. 3933.
9 The rights of the United States with reference to the Panama Railroad Company, its rights, privileges, properties and concessions, were covered in Arts. VIII and XXII of the Treaty of 1903. Colombia recognized the independence of Panama and the American ownership of the Panama Railroad Company in the Treaty of 1914 with the United States. Nothing was said in the latter regarding reversionary rights. Colombia also recognized the independence of Panama in a protocol signed at Washington May 8, 1924. (Treaties and Conventions of Colombia, 1919–1938.)
10 Citing Congressional Record, April 20, 1921, p. 481.
11 A. B. Keith, The Theory of State Succession, pp. 49, 57, 67.
12 Certain American claimants against Panama appeared before the Foreign Relations Committee suggesting that their claims for illegal deprivation of several hundred thousand acres of land by the courts and officials of Panama be adjusted in connection with the proposed grants to Panama. Senator White championed their cause: “My principal objection to the passage of this joint resolution is that it will convey to the Republic of Panama property of the value of many millions of dollars without adequate consideration, while American citizens are futilely asserting claims against Panama for property expropriated by Panama. . . .
“By the means which I have here sketched, Panama acquired the holdings of American citizens in that Republic. Those citizens were kept in complete ignorance of the proceedings involving their title until their legal rights and remedies had been lost; and now, notwithstanding this record of fraud, Panama refuses consideration of the claims of our citizens. It will not arbitrate; it will not negotiate; but it displays a complete willingness to accept from our Government property and advantages having a value of many millions of dollars.” Some of these lands, it was said, are now being used for the very sites which the United States is leasing from Panama. (Senate Report 201, Part 2,78th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 10–12; Congressional Record, Dec. 3, 1942, p. 9595.) It is known that some of the claims against Panama have been pressed upon the attention of Panama by the Department of State since 1936 without results. They have been brushed aside in favor of so-called “national interests,” while overlooking the national interest that is inseparably bound up with the security and fair dealing accorded to American investments abroad.
13 On this point Senator Connally remarked: “However, for many years Panama has been resting under a feeling of inferiority, and the feeling that her sovereignty was being invaded by the existence of private properties in Panama owned by the Government of the United States. Realizing that that has been a cause of comment for many years, our Government, like that of Panama, is acting in a generous spirit in undertaking to remove that objection by conveying the properties to the Republic of Panama. So I do not think it can be claimed that this is in effect a treaty. It is simply a generous action upon our part, not because there is any agreement in writing. There is no agreement that Panama should give us the sites, and no agreement on our part that if she gave us the sites we would give her something. So I do not think that in any sense it can be contended that it is a treaty.” (Congressional Record, April 26, 1943, p. 3809.)
14 There appears to be nothing in the Treaty of 1936 in regard to the city properties or the water and sewerage systems, although by an exchange of notes dated March 2, 1936, attached to the treaty, it was agreed to discuss the latter subject further at a later date.
15 Congressional Record, April 26, 1943, p. 3810; see also Dec. 3, 1942, pp. 9588, 9590.
16 Senate Report 201, April 22, 1943, p. 6.
17 Congressional Record, Dec. 3, 1942, pp. 9591–9592.
18 Ibid., p. 9597.
19 A motion to strike out the phrase “except treaties of peace” was carried by a vote of eight to three; a motion to strike out the requirement of two-thirds was lost by a vote of one to nine; a motion to require two-thirds of all the members of the Senate was lost three to eight; and a motion requiring a majority of the whole number of the Senate was lost five to six. The last was regarded as giving less security than a two-thirds vote (Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, Reported by James Madison, Ed. by Hunt and Scott, pp. 458 ff., 528 ff.). Compare Wallace McClure, International Executive Agreements, and the reviews of the same by D. M. Levitan, Harvard Law Review, May, 1942; E. M, Borchard, Columbia Law Review, May, 1942; F. K. Nielsen, this Journal, Vol. 35 (1941), p. 576. See also J. B. Moore, Treaties and Executive Agreements, 20 Pol. Sci. Quart. 385.