International Boundary and Water Commission, Border Sanitation Problems On August 26, 1980, at Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, J.F. Friedkin, Commissioner for the United States, and Joaquin Bustamente R. [Redondo], Commissioner for Mexico, and M.R. Ybarra and Lorenzo Padilla, the Secretaries for the United States and the Mexican Sections, respectively, of the International Boundary and Water Commission, signed Minute No. 264, Recommendations for Solution of the New River Border Sanitation Problem at Calexico, CaliforniaMexicali, Baja California Norte. In the Minute, a supplementary agreement for the solution of a specific border sanitation problem, the Commissioners noted that all of the waste waters from the rapidly growing city of Mexicali, including treated and untreated domestic waste waters as well as industrial waste waters, were being discharged into the New River. The New River crosses the United States-Mexican boundary at Calexico/Mexicali and flows northward to discharge into the Salton Sea (a lake in the extreme southern part of the State of California). The Commission reviewed studies made by Mexican Technical Advisors and their proposals for a solution to the problem, presented at a joint engineering meeting on May 30, 1980. The Commission agreed with the proposals that the goal for a permanent solution to the problem was for Mexico to eliminate discharge of domestic and industrial waste waters into the New River through construction of pumping facilities and pipelines that convey the waste waters southwestward away from the border. Adequate standby equipment and a comprehensive operation and maintenance program, including preventive maintenance, were also essential to an effective permanent solution. Taking into account that the permanent solution could not be effected immediately, the Commission reviewed the understandings reached at the joint engineering meeting in regard to feasible water quality standards during an interim period and the necessary works to meet them. It agreed to specified quantitative standards for named pollutants in samplings of water at three locations over a 20-month period, and to qualitative standards described as follows: 1. The waters of the river shall be free of untreated domestic and industrial waste waters. 2. The waters shall be free from substances that may be discharged into the river as a result of human activity in concentrations which are toxic or harmful to human, animal or aquatic life or which may significantly impair the beneficial uses of such waters. 3. The waters of the river shall be essentially free from trash, oil, scum, or other floating materials resulting from human activity in amounts sufficient to be injurious, unsightly, or to cause adverse effects on human life, fish, and wildlife. Persistent foaming shall be avoided. 4. The waters of the river shall be free of pesticides in concentrations which could cause harmful effects to human life, fish, and wildlife. 5. The channel of the river shall be free of residual sludge deposits from domestic or industrial wastes. The water quality standards were to be reviewed at 12-month intervals from the date of approval of the Minute by the two Governments (December 4, 1980). The Commission also agreed that the major part of the necessary works were already under construction and that the necessary actions and schedule for completion were: a. Complete construction of five additional oxidation lagoons at the site of the existing lagoons by September 1980. b. Dredging of the existing lagoons by the middle of 1981. c. Complete construction of new aerated oxidation lagoons southeast of Mexicali to treat domestic and industrial waste waters from the industrial area of Mexicali by the end of 1980. d. Elimination of all remaining discharges to the New River of untreated domestic and industrial waste waters, including those from feed lots, by expanding the collection system as needed as soon as possible and not later than July 1982. e. Installation of pumping equipment with adequate capacity and related works to include standby units at each of the two existing pumping plants, to guard against discharges of untreated waste waters to the New River, as soon as possible and not later than June 1981. The Commission adopted six formal recommendations for the approval of the two Governments covering the points set out, ante, and including as a final substantive recommendation: 6. That the Commission supervise the construction, operation and maintenance of the works required for the interim period as well as for the permanent solution in accordance with Articles 2 and 24 of the 1944 Water Treaty, and that the Mexican Section have jurisdiction over the works undertaken for this purpose in its courtry, including their construction, operation and maintenance, in conformance with Article 24 of the 1944 Water Treaty and with recommendation No. 7 of Minute No. 261 of September 24, 1979, approved by the two Governments. TIAS 9918; 32 UST 3764; entered into force, Dec. 4, 1980. In Minute No. 261, "Recommendations for the Solution to Border Sanitation Problems", signed at El Paso, Texas, Sept. 24, 1979 (TIAS 9658; 31 UST 5099; entered into force, Oct. 2, 1979) the Commissioners made a number of recommendations to their Governments to resolve existing border sanitation problems (caused in part by burgeoning populations on both sides of the border), and to prevent their recurrence and the emergence of any other border sanitation problems. On approving the Commis sion's recommendation, the two Governments thus recognized as a "border sanitation problem" within the meaning of Article 3 of the Water Treaty of 1944 each case in which waters that cross the border, including coastal waters, or that flow in the limitrophe reaches of the Rio Grande and the Colorado River, have sanitary conditions presenting a hazard to the health and well-being of the inhabitants of either side of the border, or impairing the beneficial uses of those waters. They agreed that the Commission give permanent attention to such problems, and give currently existing problems immediate and priority attention; and they established a framework for supporting the construction, operation, and maintenance of any works found necessary. Further, the two Governments agreed that for each of the border sanitation problems the Commission make further specific supplementary recommendations. The International Boundary and Water Commission had its origin in the International Boundary Commission, established by a convention between the United States and Mexico, concluded at Washington, Mar. 1, 1889; TS 232; 26 Stat. 1512; 9 Bevans, Treaties, etc. (1972), p. 877; entered into force, Dec. 24, 1890. Its original purpose was to facilitate the carrying out of an earlier convention, dated Nov. 12, 1884, that had set forth rules for determining questions connected with those parts of the dividing line between the United States and Mexico lying in the middle of the channel of the Rio Grande and the Rio Colorado. The 1889 convention was extended several times, and was extended indefinitely by Article 2 of the Treaty for the Utilization of Waters of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and of the Rio Grande, signed at Washington, Feb. 3, 1944, with supplementary protocol signed Nov. 14, 1944 (the Water Treaty of 1944); TS 994: 59 Stat. 1219; 9 Bevans, Treaties, etc. (1972), p. 1166; entered into force, Nov. 8, 1945. The Water Treaty expanded the responsibility of the Commission and changed its name, in Article 2, to the International Boundary and Water Commission, United States and Mexico. Under Article 3, the two Governments agreed "to give preferential attention to the solution of all border sanitation problems." See, also: the United States-Mexico Joint Communiqué, Feb. 16, 1979, on the occasion of President Carter's visit to Mexico; and the United States-Mexico Joint Press Statement, Sept. 29, 1979, on the occasion of President López Portillo's visit to Washington. American Foreign Policy: Basic Documents, 1977-1980 (1983), pp. 1368, 1371, 1374. On the occasion of the meeting of President Reagan and President de la Madrid at La Paz, Baja California, Mexico, on Aug. 14, 1983, the Governments of the United States and of Mexico concluded a (framework) Agreement on Cooperation for the Protection and Improvement of the Environment in the Border Area (the Border Environmental Cooperation Agreement); TIAS ; entered into force, Feb. 16, 1984. Each Government pledged itself to cooperate, upon the basis of equality, reciprocity, and mutual benefit, to prevent, reduce, and eliminate sources of pollution that affect the air, water, or land of the border area. The 1983 Agreement is being implemented through a series of specialized subagreements, or annexes, negotiated by United States and Mexican technical agencies with the participation of state and local governments. §12 International Maritime Law Assistance at Sea International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue, 1979 On May 20, 1980, President Carter forwarded to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification the International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue, 1979, with Annex, adopted at Hamburg on April 27, 1979, by a 51-nation conference convened under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO). (The Organization's change of name to the International Maritime Organization became effective on May 22, 1982; see, further, the 1979 Digest, pp. 174-189.) The Convention was signed on behalf of the United States on November 6, 1979. The President's letter was accompanied by a report on the Convention from Acting Secretary of State Warren Christopher, dated May 8, 1980. Following a hearing upon the Convention on June 20, 1980, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations reported it favorably, its report reading in part as follows: PURPOSE The purpose of this Convention is to promote cooperation among organizations around the world in search and rescue operations at sea. By establishing a multilateral framework for rescuing persons in distress at sea, the Convention provides for the first comprehensive approach to international search and rescue service for world shipping. BACKGROUND In 1973, a group of search and rescue experts, under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO), first met to draft a Convention to coordinate systematically worldwide search and rescue operations. This 1973 meeting grew out of the heightened recognition of the need for a coordinated approach to international maritime search and rescue services. The absence of a coordinated international plan became apparent several years earlier, during the drafting of a manual establishing search and rescue procedures for use by the world's merchant marine vessels. In some parts of the world, maritime search and rescue services had been minimal prior to this Convention. The current Convention, modeled after Annex 12 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, was finally developed and agreed to at a conference held in Hamburg, Federal Republic of Germany, from 9 to 27 April 1979. MAJOR PROVISIONS OF THE CONVENTION This Convention establishes in detail requirements and recommendations for an international maritime search and rescue plan. The Convention reemphasizes the longstanding maritime tradition that assistance be provided to any person in distress at sea, regardless of the person's nationality or status, or the circumstances in which that person is found. To ensure that adequate search and rescue services are available, parties to the Convention are to reach agreement on the boundaries of "search and rescue regions" and the division of responsibilities for overall coordination of search and rescue services in these regions. The Convention explicitly states the delineation of these regions "shall not prejudice the delimitation of any boundary." The Convention does not address the question of the treatment of individuals after rescue, which continues to be governed by existing law and tradition. The Convention neither alters the existing operations of the United States Coast Guard nor expands the territorial or operational scope of its responsibility. The Convention, in a series of requirements and recommendations, sets forth how search and rescue services are to be organized, how cooperation among states is to be effected, what preparatory measures are to be undertaken to ensure readiness, what operating procedures are to follow during a search and rescue operation, and what ship reporting systems are to be instituted to provide timely information on the location of ships in the various search and rescue regions. Under the terms of the Convention, technical amendments automatically become effective one year after communicated to the parties, unless more than one-third of the parties object. The Committee allows this procedure for tacit amendments only on a treaty-by-treaty basis and only with respect to provisions dealing with technical, as opposed to policy, matters. The Committee understands, based on the testimony of Admiral [H.H.] Bell, that the Executive Branch will in all instances inform the Committee of amendments subject to this procedure sufficiently in advance of the time stipulated for entering an objection under the tacit acceptance procedure. S.Ex.Rept. 96-40, 96th Cong., 2d sess. (1980) to accompany S.Ex.J, 96th Cong., 2d sess. (1980), pp. 1-2. The Committee's report included the section-by-section analysis of the Convention by the Department of State: Article I sets forth the general obligation of the Parties to give effect to the provisions of the Convention and its Annex, which provide for the establishment and coordination of international maritime search and rescue plans and for promoting cooperation among those organizing and participating in search and rescue operations at sea. Article II is [a] disclaimer to the effect that the Convention does not affect positions of the Parties with regard to the nature and extent of maritime jurisdiction which may be exercised by flag states or coastal states or with regard to other questions relating to the international law of the sea. It also specifies that this Convention will not affect the rights or obligations of vessels set forth in other international agreements. Article III provides for alternative ways of amending the Convention. It provides that amendments proposed to the Articles of the Convention and certain key paragraphs of the Annex enter into force upon receipt by the Secretary General of IMCO of instruments of acceptance from two-thirds of the contracting Parties. The other technical sections of the Annex are subject to a tacit acceptance procedure under which a proposed amendment could enter into force 1 year from the date it is communicated to the |