1 For text of press release, explanatory note and convention, see 41 Dept. of State Bulletin 828-835 (1959).

2 This treaty, which served as activator of the Treaty of Alliance signed later in the same day (5 Moore's Digest 586), was denounced by Congress in 1798 (Act approved July 7, 1798), in one of a series of statutes designed to ready the country for war, 1 Stat. 578.

3 An estimate of over 130, counting those both of major and of minor scope, is given in State Department Publication 6565, “Commercial Treaty Program of the United States” (Jan., 1958), p. 3. Previous issues of this Journal have carried articles by Robert B. Wilson discussing various aspects of the commercial treaties: “Postwar Commercial Treaties of the United States,” Vol. 43, pp. 262-287 (1949); “ ‘Treaty- Merchant’ Clauses in Commercial Treaties of the United States,” Vol. 44, pp. 145-149 (1950); “Property-Protection Provisions in United States Commercial Treaties,” Vol. 45, pp. 83-107 (1951); “ Access-to-Courts Provisions in United States Commercial Treaties,” Vol. 47, pp. 20-48 (1953); “Natural-Resources Provisions in United States Commercial Treaties,” Vol. 48, pp. 355-379 (1954); “'Treaty-Investor’ Clauses in Commercial Treaties of the United States,” Vol. 49, pp. 366-370 (1955).

4 The others were with Austria, Estonia, Finland, Honduras, Hungary, Latvia, Liberia, Norway, Poland, El Salvador, Siam (Thailand).

5 For discussion and citations, see Bobert B. Wilson, “A Decade of New Commercial Treaties,” 50 A.J.I.L. 927-933 (1956); H. Walker, “Modern Treaties of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation,” 42 Minn. Law Bev. 805-824 (1958). Two of this group of treaties are due to remain unperfected, as they have been withdrawn from the Senate (those with Colombia and Haiti); two others, those with Uruguay and Denmark, still await ratification in those countries after 10 and 8 years, respectively.

6 A similar title seems to have been previously employed only in the brief treaties with Turkey in 1931 and Greece in 1936, that in a single substantive article provided most-favored-nation treatment as to establishment generally. However, “établissement” is standard usage in French treaties.

7 The convention shows, in fact, a distinctive structure and draftsmanship. In this it may be said to attest further the adaptiveness of the U. S. negotiating program. Its predecessors, in their turn, were patterned upon at least four different distinctive models, those respectively of: (1) China-Italy, (2) Greece, (3) Ethiopia-Iran-Muscat, (4) the others. The recently signed treaty with Pakistan omits the usual navigation article.

8 For 1927, see the volume cited in text, passim. For 1959, see publicity occurring at the time the agreed text was initialed: e.g., despatch of the Agence France Presse, Paris, Aug. 18, article in Agence Economique et Financiére, Aug. 19, 1959, and the explanatory note on page 829 of the Dept. of State Bulletin cited note 1 above.

9 The treaties preceding the present convention have normally carried a set of trade provisions. To all intents and purposes, however, these provisions are by special stipulation put in a state of suspension during the time that GATT is in effect between the parties. In addition, the heart of them, the most-favored-nation clause, may separably be made terminable or suspendable on short notice irrespective of the treaty as a whole. E.g., Exchange of Notes, Netherlands treaty; Art. XIV, par. 5, German treaty.

10 A Consular Convention concluded in 1853 with France remains in force.

11 In large part, in the typical version of recent years, the commercial traveler article merely reproduces in one place, in specific application to commercial travelers, provisions from the entry, activities and trade provisions that already cover the subject.

12 The policy of including in TJ. S. treaties a provision on this matter was discontinued after the Ireland treaty of 1950, in face of long and persistent Congressional hostility to exempting resident aliens from the draft. Another previously standard provision, regarding practice of the professions, was also discontinued for domestic reasons, beginning with a reservation attached by the Senate to its advice and consent to the ratification of commercial treaties signed in 1951. Provision for non-profit activities is also omitted from the present convention.

13 Beginning with the Italy treaty of 1948, the workmen's compensation provision (revised in light of legal developments) has been supplemented by a provision on social security. The article concerned with these does not occur in the present convention because, presumably, the French side did not seek it. See Analysis of the Social Security System, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the House Committee on Ways and Means, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 174-175 (1953).

14 Art. XII of the 1927 draft stipulated that the right of corporations “ t o establish themselves … and fulfill their functions” should be completely dependent upon the consent of the host Party, as expressed in the municipal legislation. A paragraph later added by way of amendment, however, proposed a most-favored-nation-treatment clause for corporations that had been permitted to establish.

15 Notably, an elaboration of the rights of accused persons, Protocol, par. 1.

16 The way to providing for something more than leaseholds as concerns land (covered in the course of the first article of the 1927 draft), in face of the need for respecting certain State law disabilities against alien titleholding, as pioneered in the Siam treaty of 1937 in the form of the so-called “de facto reciprocity” formula, is followed in the convention (Art. VII, par. 1, together with Protocol, par. 10, with which compare Art. VII, last par., of the 1853 Consular Convention).

17 For a discussion of the subject covered by the most significant of these, the article on exchange controls which is designed especially to reassure the investor regarding the remittance of earnings and the repatriation of capital, see S. D. Metzger, “Exchange Controls and International Law,” in Legal Problems of International Trade 311-327 (U. of Illinois, 1959).

18 Annexed to the convention are certain provisions amplifying, qualifying and construing various of its terms, consisting of a 17-paragraph Protocol and a Joint Declaration. A major evident preoccupation of this annexed material is the meaningful reconciliation of existing occupational and investment controls with positive treaty commitments.

19 Art. XV, pars. 2 and 3, with which compare Art. XXIV of the Netherlands treaty. On France's side, the negotiation was in the name of the “President de la République française, Président de la Communauté.” However, initially it applies only to metropolitan France and the North African and Overseas Departments, leaving the Community and the Overseas Territories to be covered later by specific act, involving a decisional process on the French side whose nature is not indicated on the face of the convention. See Art. XIV, par. 3, for a formula for distinguishing between beneficiary and non-beneficiary French nationals, given that citizens of all the areas have French nationality.

20 The United States already has modern treaties with three of the six countries making up the Common Market, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, as already noted, and one dating from 1875 with Belgium. A treaty relationship of this kind is given added significance by the fact that the Common Market arrangement envisages an extensive merging of establishment rights as among its parties (Part Two, Title III, esp. Ch. 2, Rome Treaty).