The Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the United States of America was signed at The Hague on 27 March 1956 by ministers J. W. Beyen and J. M. A. H. Luns and Ambassador H. Freeman Matthews. Two copies, Dutch and English, equally authentic, with a protocol and an exchange of notes forming an integral part. Ratifications were exchanged at Washington; it entered into force on 5 December 1957, one month after the exchange (Article XXVII). It replaces the convention of commerce and navigation of 26 August 1852 and the trade-mark agreement of February 1883. This is not a visa handbook.

Article I: fair and equitable treatment for persons, companies, property and interests; freedom of commerce and navigation. Article II: entry and sojourn to carry on trade between the two territories and to develop and direct enterprises, subject to public-order and health reservations; the protocol on family members and invested capital is not transcribed as an immigration manual. Articles III–VI: protection, national-type social security, access to courts, property.

Article VII: national treatment for commercial, industrial and financial activity, including branches and the control of companies. Articles X–XVI: industrial property, most-favoured-nation treatment at customs, publication of rules, national treatment in internal taxation. Articles XIX–XXI: navigation, crews, transit. Article XXII reserves, at principle level, measures on security, fissionable materials and arms.

Article XXIII defines national treatment and companies. Article XXIV: all areas under each Party’s jurisdiction, other than the Panama Canal Zone and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands; Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles only after notification. Article XXV: consultation, then the International Court of Justice if diplomacy does not settle the dispute. Duration ten years, then until terminated on one year’s notice.

Later Dutch self-employed residence practice and U.S. E visas invoke this text; they are domestic applications, not the 1956 articles.

Cover: the Binnenhof in The Hague; not the signing room. Wikimedia Commons, free licence.

Sources consulted: Dutch–American Friendship Treaty; Verdrag van vriendschap, handel en scheepvaart (Tractatenblad 1956, 40).