THE ARBITRAL AWARD OF WILSON
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09:58:17 – 25/09/2009
and on other matters concerning the same
I recently read the following news article with great astonishment:
`Dwelling on Woodrow Wilson’s arbitral decision, Andranik Mihranyan
noted that the decision has no legal force, and is unacknowledged by
US Congress.'[1] If the news agencies have quoted this respected
professor correctly, then he is in error. Mr. Mihranyan has clearly
confused the chronologically close, yet two very distinct issues – the
mandate for Armenia and the question of Armenia’s borders – and has
therefore arrived at a wrong conclusion.
Considering the timeliness of the matter, I find it appropriate to
give a brief account of the aforementioned issues.
The mandate for Armenia and the question of Armenia’s borders
The Paris Peace Conference ultimately took up the main issues of the
Ottoman Empire in the San Remo session, which took place from the 24th
to the 27th of April, 1920. The conference got involved with
clarifying the fate of Armenia as well within this context, by which
the Supreme Council of the Allied Powers officially approached the US
President Woodrow Wilson on the 26th of April, 1920 with two separate
requests: a) for the United States to assume a mandate for Armenia,
and b) for the President of the United States to arbitrate the
frontiers of Armenia.[2] The two issues were completely independent of
each other, and therefore were addressed to separate people or bodies
and came under separate judicial authorities.
For the first – the mandate – the Paris Peace Conference approached
the United States as a state. The legal basis for such a request was
Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, according to
which member states of the League of Nations could carry out
`tutelage’ on behalf of the League of Nations. Since this issue
concerned an obligation by an international treaty, the President of
the United States had to receive the `Advice and Consent’ of the
Senate, in accordance with the US Constitution. And so, the Senate of
the United States – and not Congress – having discussed the issue of
taking on a mandate for Armenia from the 24th of May to the 1st of
June, 1920, voted against it. The real reason for this was that the US
was not a member of the League of Nations, and therefore there was no
legal basis to carry out any activities on its behalf.
The second request – arbitrating the frontier of Armenia with Turkey –
did not come under the authority of the Senate, and so that part of
the legislative branch of the United States could not and in fact
never did take up this issue. International arbitration forms part of
international law and is regulated exclusively as per international
public law. Therefore, even a week before the Senate began to discuss
the mandate for Armenia, on the 17th of May, 1920, President Wilson
gave an affirmative answer to the second request, taking on the
responsibility and authority of arbitration to decide the frontier
between Armenia and Turkey.
What followed in this regard is relatively better known. Based on the
compromis of San Remo (the 26th of April, 1920), as well as that of
Sèvres (the 10th of August, 1920), US President Woodrow Wilson
granted the arbitral award on the frontiers between Armenia and Turkey
on the 22nd of November, 1920, which was to come into force in
accordance with the agreement immediately and without
preconditions. Two days later, on the 24th of November, the award was
conveyed by telegraph to the Paris Peace Conference and for the
consideration of the League of Nations. The award was accepted as
such, but remained unsettled, because the beneficiary of the award –
the Republic of Armenia – ceased to exist on the 2nd of December,
1920.
The status of Wilson’s arbitral award
It is necessary to state, first of all, that any arbitral award, if it
is carried out with due process, does not just have some theoretical
`legal force’, but is a binding document to be carried out without
reservations. Moreover, arbitral awards are `final and without
appeal’.[3] `The arbitral award is the final and binding decision by
an arbitrator’.[4]
The final and non-appealable nature of arbitral awards is codified
within international law. In particular, by Article 54 of the 1899
edition and Article 81 of the 1907 edition of the Hague Convention for
the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes.
It is evident from the aforementioned that arbitral awards a) are
inherently binding and non-appealable decisions, and b) do not require
any ratification or approval from within a state.
And so, by the arbitral award of the President of the United States
Woodrow Wilson, the frontier between Armenia and Turkey has been
decided for perpetuity, being in force to this day and not subject to
any appeal.
There is another important issue to consider. Have the authorities and
public bodies of the United States ever expressed any position with
regards to President Wilson’s arbitral award deciding the border
between Armenia and Turkey?
The position of the executive branch
The highest executive power of the United States not only recognised
Wilson’s arbitral award, but has also ratified it and, therefore, it
has become part of the law of the land of the United States. The
President of the United States Woodrow Wilson and Secretary of State
Bainbridge Colby ratified the award of the arbitrator Woodrow Wilson
with their signatures and The Great Seal of the United
States. According to international law, the personal signature of the
arbitrator and his seal, if applicable, are completely sufficient as
ratification of an arbitral award. Woodrow Wilson could have been
satisfied with only his signature or as well as his presidential
seal. In that case, the award would have been the obligation of an
individual, albeit a president. However, the arbitral award is
ratified with the official state seal and confirmed by the keeper of
the seal, the Secretary of State. The arbitral award of Woodrow Wilson
is thus an unqualified obligation of the United States of America
itself.
The position of the legislative branch
As mentioned above, arbitral awards are not subject to any legislative
approval or ratification. So the Senate, which reserves the right to
take up matters relating to foreign policy according to the US
Constitution, never discussed the arbitral award deciding the
Armenian-Turkish frontier. Nevertheless, in the course of discussing
other matters, the Senate of the United States explicitly expressed
its position on this award on at least one occasion.
On the 18th of January, 1927, the Senate rejected the Turkish-American
treaty of the 6th of August, 1923, for three reasons. One of the
reasons was that Turkey `failed to provide for the fulfillment of the
Wilson award to Armenia’.[5] Senator William H. King (D-Utah)
expressed himself much more clearly in an official statement on this
occasion, `Obviously it would be unfair and unreasonable for the
United States to recognize and respect the claims and professions of
Kemal so long as he persist in holding control and sovereignty over
Wilson Armenia.'[6] The vote in the Senate in 1927 testifies without a
doubt to the fact that Wilson’s arbitral award was a ratified award
and had legal bearing in 1927. Nothing from a legal perspective has
changed since then, and it thus remains in force to this day. I would
like to especially emphasise that this aforementioned discussion and
vote took place years after `the relevant treaties … defin[ing]
… the … border’ cited in the unfortunate pair of protocols.
Let me also add that the restoration of relations between Turkey and
America (after the First World War) still does not have a basis in any
treaty, and numerous controversial legal questions are left
unaddressed in that matter.
The position of public bodies
The most important public bodies in the United States are the
political parties. The main clauses of party programmes are to be
found in the party platforms, which are approved by the general
assemblies of political parties.
The Democratic Party of the US (the party of current President Obama)
has official expressed a position on Wilson’s arbitral award on two
occasions, in 1924 and in 1928.
In its 1924 programme, the Democratic Party included a separate clause
of the `Fulfillment of President Wilson’s arbitral award respecting
Armenia'[7]as a platform and goal. The 1928 platform went even
further, citing the US as a state and, as per the `promises and
engagements’ of the Allied Powers, `We favor the most earnest efforts
on the part of the United States to secure the fulfillment of the
promises and engagements made during and following the World War by
the United States and the allied powers to Armenia and her people.'[8]
The only `promise and engagement’ of the United States to the Republic
of Armenia was and continues to remain the arbitral award of Woodrow
Wilson on the border between Armenia and Turkey.
Let us put to one side the person of Andranik Mihranyan. I simply used
his statement as an opportunity to say all of the above. Let us
instead consider the most important question, which remains
unanswered, at least to me:
Is there indeed any other people, except for the Armenians, who, even
after possessing all of the above and many more legal leverages, would
willfully, with great pomp and show even, go ahead and reject her own
Homeland and bring in outside dictators?
Ara Papian
Head of the Modus Vivendi Centre
22 September, 2009