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Show -107- (2) The Colorado River (a) The United States agrees to deliver to Kexi^o a guaranteed annual flow of 1.5 million acre-feet in accordance with a specified schedule of monthly deliveries, and a specified share of any surplus water. (b) Each Government agrees to construct and operate certain works at its own expense, certain others jointly in proportion to their use by each, while certain others shall be constructed and operated by the United States at Mexican expense. (3) Joint study and investigation of the equitable distribution of the waters of the Tijuana River system. When the Treaty came before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations one of its opponents testified that he would not undertake to say what was the international law of Sweden, South Africa or any other country, but that Attorney General Harmon's opinion was a correct statement of international law as practiced by the United States. With regard to this testimony Mr. B. M. English, an assistant to the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, testified as follows: ...It seems obvious, I think, that if there is any international law dealing with the subject of allocation of international streams, that law is necessarily the same for every nation, whether the United States, Mexico, Sweden, or South Africa. As for the Harmon opinion, the conclusion reached therein that from the standpoint of international law Mexico was entitled to no waters of the Rio Grande was apparently based primarily on language used by the Supreme Court in the celebrated Schooner Exchange Case, to the effect that the jurisdiction of a nation within its own territory is necessarily exclusive and absolute and susceptible of only self-imposed limitations. It may be well to point out that that case did not deal with the question of allocation of waters of international rivers or with the alleged right of one State through which such a river flows to do as it saw fit with the waters, or any other related subject. The sole question before the court was whether the courts of the United States had jurisdiction over a vessel of a foreign government while wholly within the territorial limits of the United States 1. Mr. English I. Hearings before Committee on Foreign Relations on Treaty with Mexico Relating to Utilization of Waters of Certain Rivers, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. Pt. 5, pp. 17^0-41 (19^5). |
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Original book: [State of Arizona, complainant v. State of California, Palo Verde Irrigation District, Coachella Valley County Water District, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, City of Los Angeles, California, City of San Diego, California, and County of San Diego, California, defendants, United States of America, State of Nevada, State of New Mexico, State of Utah, interveners] : |