The treaty of limits and free river navigation between Peru and Colombia was signed at Lima on 24 March 1922 by Alberto Salomón, Peruvian minister for foreign affairs, and Fabio Lozano Torrijos, Colombian minister plenipotentiary. Two copies, in Spanish. Ratifications were exchanged at Bogotá on 19 March 1928 (Peruvian Legislative Resolution No. 5940 of 21 December 1927). It is not the 1925 Washington tripartite act, nor the 1934 Rio Protocol.

Article I fixes the boundary, at principle level, along the Putumayo to the Yaguas, then a straight line to the Atacuari and along the Amazon to the Peru–Brazil limit of 1851. Colombia gains its own access to the Amazon through the Leticia trapezium. It recognises as Peruvian the territories on the right bank of the Putumayo east of the mouth of the Cuhimbé, as far as the 1916 Colombia–Ecuador line. The reservation vis-à-vis Brazil east of Tabatinga–Apaporis is a declaration, not a delimitation with Brazil. Meridians are not reproduced here as a gazetteer.

Articles II–VII: a mixed demarcation commission, three members each, to sit at Iquitos; durable marks where the line is not a natural feature; slight adjustments for clarity; differences to the two governments, then to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague; if one State fails to appoint, the other may demarcate alone. Costs other than salaries are shared equally.

Article VIII: reciprocal, perpetual freedom of land transit and navigation on the common rivers, their tributaries and confluents, subject to fiscal and river-police rules. Article IX: existing land concessions and acquired rights remain. Article X: persons passing from one jurisdiction to the other keep their former nationality unless they opt within six months. Article XI: ratification under each domestic law; exchange at Lima or Bogotá.

The 1925 Washington act with Brazil withdrew Brazilian objections and Colombia’s reservation on the Tabatinga–Apaporis line; it is a distinct instrument. The 1932 occupation of Leticia and the Rio de Janeiro Protocol of 24 May 1934 reaffirmed this treaty; they are not an operations handbook. This is not a colonial-occupation guide.

Cover: the Amazon waterfront at Leticia, the town in the trapezium transferred to Colombia; not the signing room in Lima. Wikimedia Commons, free licence.

Sources consulted: Salomón–Lozano Treaty; Frontera terrestre Colombia–Perú (Cancillería de Colombia).