Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1938, Page 45

THE OSLO CONVENTION AND AFTER
By Halvdan Koht.
THE Oslo Convention of December 22nd, 1930, has become
the symbol of the struggle for allaying economic ant-
agonisms between nations.
It was one of the fatal consequences of the Great War that
international economic relations were profoundly disturbed,
and commercial competition between nations was extremely
sharpened, every nation feeling compelled to fight hard to main-
tain its standard. Public opinion soon became conscious of the
danger to international peace created by such conditions, and
towards the end of the 1920’s statesmen began to discuss how
to avert an aggravation of the situation. The need to fight against
the tendency to construct higher and higher barriers against free
international exchange of commodities became ever more com-
pelling; in 1929, the Assembly of the League of Nations decided
to convoke an international conference for the purpose of con-
cluding a customs truce for a couple of years.
This effort seemed very modest, but nevertheless it proved too
ambitious. The conference, which met in February, 1930, found
it difficult to arrive at practical conclusions; but on March 24th
an International Convention was signed by two groups of Euro-
pean nations. One group, composed of nations who generally had
their customs tariffs bound by commercial treaties, took upon
themselves the obligation not to denounce such treaties for one
year and, within the same period, not to raise their tariffs with-
out previous notice to their co-signatories. The other group, com-
posed of states not bound in a similar way, undertook not to
increase their protective duties for one year, but retained their
liberty in regard to duties of a purely fiscal character.
However, this very limited agreement never came into
force. The Convention was ratified by Norway as the first of
the signatory nations on June i8th, 1930. Next followed Belgium
(August 29th), later some few other nations. But when the con-
ference met again in November of the same year, it had to face
the fact that a sufficient number of ratifications had not been
obtained to put the convention into force. The attempt at arriv-
ing at an international agreement had proved abortive, and so
did later attempts in the same direction.