Len wrote:
> It seems to me like a zone or area where both side have agreed (or
> operate without an agreement) that neither side will exercise certain
> prerogatives, making such areas customs AND immigration free zones.
> That leaves only the "other laws" to be invoked if something happens,
> and either side can probably do whatever is practical under the
> circumstances. Maybe we have here a true sharing of sovereignty which
> I didn't think was possible. Sharing through abstinence.
I can't buy this business about "free zones" and "shared sovereignty." What
you're saying is that the land under the bridge is either a neutral zone or a
condominium. Neither is provided for in the treaty.
What the 1970 treaty does is treat the boundary as a very flexible thing that
can be adapted to other more important needs, primarily water management. (The
water of the river is a resource of much greater value to each nation than any
few acres here or there along its course.) The treaty lays down the principals
and empowers the IBWC to do just about anything it feels it needs to do, with
the approval of both governments, to carry them out. This is an agency in the
business of creating artificial avulsions and moving the boundary into them! As
for natural avulsions, they automatically move the boundary of parcels of land
with up to 617.76 acres and with up to 100 residents unless the losing nation
wishes to undertake the replacement of the river in the original channel at it's
own expense. Clearly, the usual rules don't apply here. Why? Because the
treaty says that they don't! I'm not saying that this treaty does not highly
regard sovereignty. The word is used very frequently. The only thing is that
sovereignty is much less permanent here than usual. The treaty actually
establishes a regime for the regular transfer and interchange of sovereignty. I
urge the reading of my abstract for those who have not done so. Part of the
reason I abstracted it all was to show you how bizarre this treaty is.
Now (more to the point), about bridges:
First, the treaty says in Article II A that (except as provided differently in
three very specific treaty provisions, none of which are Article VII about
bridges) the boundary shall be the middle of the main channel. So if not for
the subsequent Article VII about bridges, that is where the issue would stand.
The boundary for ALL purposes would be river.
What does Article VII come along and say? Well, it says that a monument will be
placed "exactly over the international boundary" (at the time), and that it
"shall denote the boundary for all the PURPOSES OF SUCH BRIDGE." It goes on to
say, "Any rights OTHER than those relating to the BRIDGE ITSELF shall be
determined, IN CASE LATER CHANGES OCCUR, in accordance with the provisions of
this Treaty," [which is to say, the middle of the main channel].
The purpose of bridges is to carry traffic of various sorts across the river.
For those purposes (only), the monument on the bridge is observed. For
everything else, the boundary goes wherever the river accretes (at least until
the IBWC decides to do an avulsion and move them both or move the monument on
the bridge).
Gentlemen (and ladies, if any are present), I fear that honesty forces me to
admit that what we have here is either a true vertical differentiation or
something functionally similar. Whichever one calls it is only a matter of
semantics. I have now come to believe that Mr. Rubio of the IBWC was entirely
correct when he enunciated the agency's interpretation to me by telephone that
the accreted land beneath the monumented Mexican segment of the bridge is
sovereign American territory. (The same could be said for the airspace above
it.) All of my subsequent doubting of him was based on the 1884 Convention
(which is explicitly terminated) and my natural reluctance to accept anything
other than the long-established principals of boundary delineation and
demarcation that I had been taught. This 1970 Treaty clearly turns everything
on its ear!
The editors of the 1970 Treaty undoubtedly had the 1884 Convention before them.
Many phrases related to bridges are lifted verbatim, but they intentionally
deleted the 1884 reference to "the ground on which it [the bridge] shall be
built."
Now, I know the ampersands are about to fly :-), but this is the conclusion to
which I have been dragged kicking and screaming by the 1970 Treaty.
Lowell G. McManus
Leesville, Louisiana, USA