In Oslo, on 22 December 1930, the Economic Union of Belgium and Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden sign the Convention of Economic Rapprochement, together with a protocol. The authentic text is French, in ten articles, in a single copy deposited in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Oslo.

The Parties, appointing as plenipotentiaries Maximilien Suetens for Belgium, J. Clan for Denmark, Gunnar Jahn and Rolf Andvord for Norway, J. A. Nederbragt for the Netherlands, and Torvald Hojer and Christian Gunther for Sweden, state that they are desirous of putting into practice the principles on which the economic activity of the League of Nations is based and of respecting, as far as possible, their mutual interests.

Article I obliges them not to increase their Customs duties or to establish new Customs duties without communicating the proposals or decisions to that effect to the other High Contracting Parties, at least fifteen days before the date on which it is proposed to put the said increases or new duties into force. If the communication is not made more than twenty days before the increases or duties come into force, it shall be transmitted by telegraph; the Party proposing the measure may ask for its communication to be regarded as confidential. Article II entitles a Party which considers itself adversely affected by the proposed increases or new duties, within the ten days following receipt of the communication, to propose any modifications it may think fit to safeguard its interests.

Article III provides that if, after carefully examining the proposals thus made to it, the Party in question is unable to accept them, it shall be entitled to put the proposed measures into force without further formalities one month after the date of the communication to which Article I relates, informing the other High Contracting Parties by telegraph the same day. Article IV entitles the Party which considers itself injured, within the month following the introduction of the increases or new duties, to notify the other High Contracting Parties by telegraph of its denunciation of the Convention, to take effect, as far as the denouncing Party itself is concerned, fifteen days later, either in relation to the Party which has introduced the increases or new duties, or in relation to all the High Contracting Parties; within the month following receipt of such notification, the other High Contracting Parties may denounce the Convention in the same way and with the same period of notice.

Article V allows, in exceptional cases, new or increased fiscal duties which must be put into force immediately to be introduced without a preliminary communication, provided the Party immediately informs the other High Contracting Parties. Article VI concludes the Convention for a period of six months; one month before the expiration of that period, each High Contracting Party may notify the Norwegian Government of its intention to withdraw, and that Government shall immediately inform the other Parties. For those who have not denounced it, the Convention remains in force on the same conditions for a further period of six months, and so on for successive periods of six months.

Article VII allows States not Parties to accede if the High Contracting Parties are agreeable. Article VIII requires ratification as soon as possible and deposit of the instruments at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Oslo. Article IX provides that the Convention shall enter into force on the fifteenth day after the date on which the instruments of the fifth ratification are deposited; it entered into force on 7 February 1932. Article X allows, at signature or at deposit of ratifications, a declaration that a Party is bound only in respect of its territories in Europe, with a later right to extend the Convention, by declaration to the Norwegian Government, to oversea territories, colonies or territories under mandate, or to cause it to cease to have effect there.

The Protocol declares that the Governments are prepared to support international action with a view to reducing hindrances to trade and to improving international trade in general, that they intend to continue, in the economic sphere, the co-operation inaugurated among them in the year 1930, and that they propose to examine the possibility of extending the principle of the Convention to other measures having a bearing on their commercial relations with one another. Sweden signs subject to ratification by the King with the approval of the Riksdag. The text is not the 1932 Ouchy Convention and not the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Image: Victoria Terrasse, Oslo; Marcelosilvacosta, 12 May 2018; CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: Oslo Agreements, 1930. Treaty text: Convention of Economic Rapprochement, Oslo, 22 December 1930, League of Nations Treaty Series vol. 126.