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PUBLICATION No. 668

NOTE OF THE AMERICAN AGENT

This transcript cannot be said to be a literally accurate record of the oral arguments, although the inaccuracies are of verbiage only and not of substance. The reasons are as follows:

The agreement between the two Governments provided that "the oral arguments before the Arbitral Commission may be made in either English or French but a translation thereof shall be submitted to the Tribunal and to the Agent of the other Government at the end of each argument."

There was no doubt on the part of the United States, which drafted the agreement, that this provision clearly stated the obligation of each Agent to furnish a translation of his own arguments to the Agent of the other Government. The American reporter therefore took to Vienna a corps of assistants prepared to translate the English arguments of the United States into their native languageFrench. It was found, upon arrival at Vienna, that the Egyptian Government had also brought a corps of French assistants prepared to translate the English arguments of the United States into French rather than the arguments of their own Government into English. The resultant disagreement with respect to the proper procedure was referred to the Presiding Commissioner, who (contrary to the international agreement, it is believed) decided that each Agency must translate the arguments of the other side. This worked a particular hardship on the United States because the American reporter had equipped himself to reproduce the American arguments mechanically by means of microphone and electric phonograph, and his translators who had gone to Vienna prepared to translate the American arguments from English into their native language-French-were compelled to become typists in English and translators of the French arguments of the Egyptian Government into a language somewhat foreign to them-English.

The inevitable result was to cause the work of the American reporter to be done under unnecessarily difficult circumstances both in the matter of reporting the American arguments and of translating those of the Egyptian Government and, consequently, to deprive the United States entirely of the benefit of translations of the Egyptian arguments as a basis for its rebuttal arguments. As a result of this unfortunate development, this report has incurred much inaccuracy of expression although, from the standpoint of the facts and the law developed, it is believed to be an accurate record.

See also the note on page 519.

B. L. H.

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