Ambassador Antonio Gómez Robledo deals with three international arbitration cases which are seldom mentioned in history texts in the United States but rarely omitted from Mexican historical works. This is by no means a definitive diplomatic history, an interpretive foreign policy study, or a profound legal treatise, but it demonstrates sound knowledge in all three areas.
Gómez Robledo first examines the Pious Fund case in which the Catholic Church of California endeavored to extract from the government of Mexico funds which were originally vested in the Church of New Spain. Despite the fact that after two arbitrations the ultimate award favored the United States, the author presents a strong case for Mexico.
In dealing with the recently settled Chamizal conflict, he takes the United States to task for failure to abide by the arbitral decision of 1911. Forcefully stating the position of an aggrieved Mexican, he terms this the most passionate case in the diplomatic history of Mexico. His treatment of the Chamizal conflict is the most perceptive of the three, although incomplete as the period since 1911 is neglected. A more thorough study of United States—Mexican diplomacy in this era would have revealed numerous complexities which the author chose to omit. Nevertheless, his examination of both the Pious Fund and Chamizal cases indicates a definite lack of foresight on the part of those who negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.
Gómez Robledo’s account of both the Chamizal question and the Island of Passion controversy (commonly called the Clipperton Island case) illustrates that a primary objective of Mexican diplomacy has been the conservation of her national territory. As a tribute to the art of diplomacy the book often mitigates the author’s nationalistic bias. Above all the need for international law to be uniform and generally accepted is paramount in his mind.
After cutting apart almost every flimsy page, the reader found a useful although abbreviated selection of documents. Additional maps of the Chamizal region and of the Clipperton Island area as well as a bibliography would have been helpful.
