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The Venezuela-British Guiana Boundary Arbitration of 1899

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2017

Clifton J. Child
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Extract

In his note on “The Venezuela-British Guiana Boundary Dispute,” (this JOURNAL, Vol. 43 (1949), pp. 523–530), Judge Otto Schoenrich publishes a memorandum by the late Severo Mallet-Prevost which, if it were the only evidence upon which the fairness of the arbitration of 1899 could be judged, would bring the justice of the award seriously into question. Fortunately, however, it is not necessary to rely either upon the recollections of Mr. Mallet-Prevost or upon the construction placed upon these and other facts relating to the boundary dispute by Judge Schoenrich in order to learn the truth of how the Tribunal came to make its award. There are the voluminous files of the British Foreign Office on the arbitration to which reference may be made and there is the verbatim record of the Tribunal, taken down by six shorthand writers, printed day by day as the Tribunal sat, and then issued in 54 parts. There are also the files —often most informative—of contemporary newspapers (for the arbitration took place at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the watchful eye of the press).

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , October 1950 , pp. 682 - 693
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1950

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References

1 The Foreign Office papers on the Arbitration of 1899 in the Public Record Office, London, fill 15 bound volumes. They are FO 8O: 411-424 inclusive, and FO 80: 474

2 The award was announced on Oct. 3, and not on the 4th, as stated by Judge Schoenrich.

3 See below, p. 691.

4 The Times (London), Oct. 4, 1899, p. 6.

5 So far from entering such a protest, Justice Brewer went on record with the statement, which Judge Schoenrich himself quotes, to the effect that all the arbitrators had differing views as to where the true boundary should be drawn, etc.

6 Seventeenth Day's Proceedings, Meeting of July 24, p. 993

7 Forty-Fourth Day's Proceedings, Meeting of September 12, pp. 2556-2560

8 They were often more searching than those put by Chief Justice Fuller and Justice Brewer.

9 The Tribunal had to take three long recesses in June and early July in order to permit M. de Martens to attend the First Hague Conference.

10 Cf. the remarks by the President and other members of the Tribunal, in Twentieth Day's Proceedings, Meeting of July 31, pp. 1213 ff.

11 Mr. Buchanan to Lord Salisbury, No. 81 of August 10, 1899, in FO 80: 420. Venezuela, Guiana Boundary Arbitration (Archives), Drafts 1-82, January-August 12, 1899.

12 Mr. Buchanan to Lord Salisbury, No. 104 of August 29, 1899, in FO 80: 421. Venezuela, Guiana Boundary Arbitration (Archives), Drafts Nos. 83-169, August 13- January 4, 1900.

13 Whom Judge Schoenrich erroneously describes as an “ex-Secretary of War.” He was, as is well known, an ex-Secretary of the Navy.

14 Mr. Buchanan to Lord Salisbury, No. 131 of September 15, 1899, in FO 80: 421.

15 Mr. Buchanan to Lord Salisbury, No. 156 of September 27, 1899, ibid. Mr. James C. Tilley, Mr. Buchanan's assistant, wrote in a somewhat lighter vein: “General Harrison is very good in his own style, which includes a good deal of furniture smashing, but I do not think that he is good enough to turn the scale.” Mr. Tilley to Mr. Cartwright of September 20, 1899, in FO 8O: 419. Venezuela, Guiana Boundary Arbitration (Various), June-December, 1899.

16 FO 80: 411-424 and 474

17 FO 65: 1579-1583, Russia

18 On August 23 (Court Circular, p. 7) the Times reported that “Lord Russell of Killowen has left London for Paris,” but again there was no mention of M. de Martens or Lord Justice Collins.

19 On August 23 (Court Circular, p. 7) the Times reported that “the Attorney-General (Sir R. Webster) and Sir Robert Reid, Q.C., M.P., have both returned to Paris for the Venezuelan arbitration.” Again there was no mention of M. de Martens or Lord Justice Collins.

20 The Times, Aug. 16, Court Circular, p. 7.

21 Ibid., Aug. 25, Court Circular, p. 7.

22 British and Foreign State Papers, 1898-1899, Vol. XCI, pp. 91 ff.

23 “Aufzeichnung des Ersten Sekretärs bei der Botschaft in Petersburg von Tschirschky, St. Petersburg den S. Juli 1899,” in Die Grosse PolitiTc der Europäischen Kabinette 1871-1914, Vol. 14, Pt. 2, pp. 556-557.

24 Cf . FO 65: 1580, Russia, etc. A few days later the German Chargé d'Affaires, von Tschirschky, likewise felt it necessary to report to his government on the anti- British feeling which the Boer crisis had engendered among the Russians. Cf. “Der Geschäftsträger in Petersburg von Tschirschky an den Reichskcanzler von Hohenlohe,St. Petersburg den SO.Oktober 1899” in Die Grosse Politik, Vol. 15, pp. 408 ff. For further examples of anti-British feeling among Russians on the Boer question, cf. the despatches of Maximov and Mϋller in “Anglo-burskaya voina v doneseniyakh russkovo voennovo agenta” in Krasny Arkhiv, /6 (103)/ Moscow, 1940, pp. 130-159.

25 Nor was there anything in the Rules of Procedure of the Tribunal which pointed to the desirability of the award being uanimous. On the contrary, Art. XX of the Rules provided for the possibility of a “minority of members of the Tribunal” refusing to sign the award by stipulating that such a refusal should be “duly noted in the Report of the Proceedings.” Cf. Rules of Procedure in FO 80: 412, Venezuela, Guiana Boundary Arbitration, etc.

26 It ought perhaps to be noted here, if only in fairness to the judges, that we have only Mr. Mallet-Prevost's word for it that the Tribunal divided as he states; i.e., that the two British arbitrators were disposed to award Great Britain all the territory east of the Schomburgk line, starting from Point Barima on the coast, and that the two American arbitrators, on the other hand, favored a boundary which would start at the Moruca River and give Venezuela all the territory west of this. This simple division between the judges does not accord with the statement of Mr. Justice Brewer's which Judge Schoenrich himself quotes in his note (although the fact apparently escapes Judge Schoenrich's notice). According to Justice Brewer, if any of the judges had been asked to give an award “each would have given one differing in extent and character.” In other words, there were not two conflicting views as to where the boundary ought to be drawn, but four or even five. Consequently, as Justice Brewer observes, the judges had to “adjust” their differing views and “finally draw a line running between what each thought was right.” (Italics added.) Nor does Justice Brewer suggest that there was any pressure brought to bear upon him to acknowledge a decision in which he did not concur. On the contrary, he states that “it was only by the greatest conciliation and mutual concession that a compromise was arrived at .”(Italics added.) This was presumably a source, not of resentment, but of satisfaction to him in that, as he himself states, he had believed until the last moment that a decision would be quite impossible. The implication of Mr. Mallet-Prevost's statement that the British judges were more anxious to secure a decision favorable to Great Britain than to see that justice was done to both sides, is not in any way borne out by remarks which Justice Brewer let fall to Mr. George W. Buchanan, the British Agent. In the course of a conversation with Mr. Buchanan on July 23, 1899, Justice Brewer apparently “expressed great admiration for the impartial and strict sense of justice shown by the British arbitrators during the proceedings of the Tribunal, adding that he hoped that the Court would not find it difficult to agree as to the award.” (Mr. Buchanan to Lord Salisbury, No. 52 of July 24, 1899, in FO 8O: 420, Venezuela, Guiana Boundary Arbitration, etc

27 In an interview with Reuter's correspondent after the award had been announced on Oct. 3, M. de Martens, after repeating what he had told the Tribunal about the significance of the unanimity of the judges, added: “The boundary line which has been laid down by the judges is a line based on justice and law. The judges have been actuated by a desire to establish a compromise in a very complicated question, the origin of which must be looked for at the end of the 15th century.” Cf. London Times, Oct. 4, 1899, p. 6.

28 The Times, Oct. 4, 1899, p. 6. It is surely not without significance that the official Russian Bolshaya Sovetskaya Entziklopediya (Moscow, 1928), Vol. X, p. 170, also speaks of “the judgment being substantially in favorof Venezuela.” By the time this article was written an intensive study of the Imperial Russian archives had been made, so that, hadthere been any evidence to suggest that the Tribunal of Arbitration was improperly influenced in favor of Great Britain, the writer of the article would certainly have drawn attention to it.

29 Mr. Buchanan to Lord Salisbury, No. 164 of October 3, 1899, in FO 80: 417, Venezuela, Guiana Boundary, etc.

30 Mr. Haggard to Lord Salisbury, No. 124 of October 7, 1899, in FO 80: 419.

31 After alluding with great bitterness to various unsavory aspects of Venezuelan political life at the time the article concluded: “Sefiores Jueces: Hemos nosotros de confiar á sangre fría la suerte de unos millares de hombres industriosos y de unos centenares de leguas de incalculable riqueza á Venezuela con preferencia á la Gran Bretana que ya ha establecido dominio sobre ese territorio! “Hemos de salvar para la civilización este nuevo imperio, ó volverlo al estado en que se encuentra desde el descubrimiento d América, ensanchando con ello las fronteras de la semi-civilización y aumentando el número de reclutables “Decided vosotros, honorable colegas. Yo voto por la Gran Bretana.” Cf. Mr. Haggard to Lord Salisbury, No. 132 of October 19, 1899, and enclosures in FO 80: 419.

32 James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. XIV, p. 6380.