Commissions of the Danube River
The European Commission of the Danube was the first — and for a long time the only — international body to have serious police and juridical powers over private vessels and individual people, and it was seen in 1930, for example, by history professor Glen A. Blackburn of the United States as a "unique" organization.
It is safe to predict that the need for protecting the integrity of the commission will some day lift it out of the twilight of statehood and accord it full membership in the League of Nations.
[2] Stanford University history professor Edward Krehbiel suggested in 1918 that other "international administrative agents" like the Danube Commission would eventually be created to handle specific problems.
"[3]: 55 The commission, he said: offers an organ through which nations can approach one another on the basis of common or united action, instead of as rivals, as is the case in an ambassadorial conference.
[5] The CED began its work by fixing the seat of the commission in the port of Galatz and ordering temporary improvements of the Sulina branch.
Under the chairmanship of Sir John Stokes,[6] Crimean War veteran of the British Royal Engineers, the commission hastened to get the job done within the two years originally allotted by the treaty.
[8]At the end of the two years, the powers that signed the treaty were to "pronounce the dissolution of the European Commission", and the so-called "permanent", upstream, IDC was then to extend its supervision to the Lower Danube.
The latter commission was supposed to consist of Austria-Hungary, Bavaria, the Sublime Porte (Turkey), Württemberg and the two Danubian principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia).
[3]: 53 On November 2, 1865, a public act signed by Austria, Britain, France, Italy, Prussia, Russia, and Turkey placed the CED, its officers, works and establishments "under the protection of international law" (Article I).
Duties of the officers were spelled out, neutrality of the buildings, records, and funds was ordered, and certain portions of Turkish territory were reserved for exclusive use of the CED.
"[3]: 46 In 1871 at a conference in London, Russia agreed with Austria-Hungary, Britain, Germany, Italy, and Turkey to extend the commission's term for another twelve years, which coincided with the redemption period of a large loan floated in 1865.
[15] The conference also: In 1878, Romania, which had been an autonomous principality within the Ottoman Empire since 1861, was admitted to an expanded CED as a free country as a result of the Treaty of Berlin (1878).
The other Danubian arrangements were: In 1881, the interested countries gathered at Galatz to promulgate another treaty, or, as it was termed, a public act, that spelled out details of the CED's relations with Romania, which was striving for more authority.
[18]: 257 After a month of discussion, the delegates decided to: Detailed and liberal rules drawn up in this convention for the Danube between Ibraila upstream to the Iron Gate were never applied.
Romania did not agree, "and the stretch of the Danube was administered by each riparian state, with due regard, however, to the principle of free navigation.
Later in the year, non-enemy states were admitted on an equal footing with the great powers; the group met with some success in reopening the river, despite the difficulties.
Represented were Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, and Yugoslavia, Absent from a full-dress Danubian conference for the first time were Russia, then in the first years of rule by the Bolsheviks, and Turkey.
Otto Popper of Bratislava, secretary of the IDC in 1920–29, said this about the statute when viewing it twenty years later: Unfortunately this fundamental document was drafted during a period when much of the original spirit of [President Woodrow] Wilson's Fourteen Points was beginning to fade.
[20]: 244 Economic affairs along the entire river were so bad that the League of Nations instituted in 1922 an inquiry by a special committee, headed by an American, Walker D. Hines (Wilson's wartime chief of railroads).
Hines scored the "petty attitudes" of the multitude of free governments and complained of the frontier formalities and the exclusion of non-nationals from international trade.
This report led the Commercial and Financial Chronicle of New York City to suggest, in particular, the reduction of "dues which it [the EDC] has imposed.
Before the war, reported Clair Price of the New York Times,the Danube was in the hands of riverain [river-bordering] groups, but since then Furness, Withy and Co., large United Kingdom shipholders, have obtained a virtual monopoly.
[25]The company had obtained this monopoly by refinancing the war-stricken prewar firms, most of which were owned by Austrian or Hungarian interests (the losers in the war).
"[19]: 300 Meanwhile, Romania desired the outright abolition of the CED, having made the suggestion for the first time in 1881, when King Carol said he would insist on the mouths being "exclusively controlled by Romanian officials.
"[19]: 300 This statement led to a break with Austria-Hungary, and Carol was forced late in the year to dispatch a message of " 'deep regret' for the offense that had been given to Austria.
Spokesmen claimed the CED had failed to keep the channel clear, resulting in a situation where only empty boats could cross it; the commission replied that the silt had piled up during the war when Romania had full control.
It noted that the jurisdiction of the CED had been extended up the river from Galatz to Ibraila by the Treaty of London of 1883, in the framing and signing of which Romania had not participated.
The case was taken to the League of Nations, which in 1926 sent the matter to the Permanent Court of International Justice at the request of Britain, France, Italy, and Romania.
"[1]: 1157–58 [27] Romania finally achieved effective control of the Lower Danube in May 1939, when the Sinaia Agreement (concluded on 18 August 1938) entered into force.
