following another provision dealing with some other subject. In support of this reasoning, it may be noted that article VII of the Panama convention would have been more in harmony with the other provisions therein if the phrase above referred to had been omitted. H. F. ALFARO Commissioner COMMENT It is possible that history may appraise this Decision as an influence toward the lowering of the standards of international responsibility with respect to both the required degree of police protection and of efficiency in prosecution of offenses against foreigners. In the Banks claim, ante, p. 148, liability was founded upon neglect of policemen to prevent aggressions when it was in their power to do so. In this case there was a similar neglect but on the part of higher officials. The neglect in the present case, however, related not to aggressions visible in the performance but to aggressions which might reasonably have been foreseen. The Commission seems to have found that the aggressions in question "could have been averted by the presence of a sufficient police force ", but that the neglect of the higher officials to provide "sufficient " police was excused by "the conditions under which the events had taken place ". The Decision, however, contains no very clear explanation with respect to the particular "conditions" referred to in this connection. There were in this case admittedly unprovoked criminal assaults upon a foreigner by an uncontrolled and disorderly assembly on the public highway and in the presence of police officers. These publicly known offenses led to no prosecutions and no arrests; nor did they even lead to any official investigation. International responsibility which might ordinarily be considered as consequent upon such circumstances was found not to exist in this case because of "the conditions under which the events had taken place". The Commission evidently desired, therefore, that its Decision should not be taken as a precedent establishing a departure from those generally recognized principles of international law which impose liability in analogous cases. This conclusion seems to be confirmed by the Decision of the same Commission in the Denham claim, Docket Registry No. 6, post, p. 244. CLAIM on behalf of LETTIE CHARLOTTE DENHAM AND FRANK PARLIN DENHAM (Murder Claim) DOCKET REGISTRY NO. 6 Syllabus 1. Claim alleging international responsibility consequent upon an unforeseeable murder of an alien by a private individual was held not to have been established by evidence of general conditions of lawlessness and the statement by the court which imposed sentence upon the murderer that "criminality among us has impunity as its immediate cause and . . . to such impunity, more than any other circumstance, is due the series of bloody events which have been occurring in various sections of the country and which are justly a source of constant alarm to the government and to the community ". 2. Imprisonment of three years and one month for the murder of a foreigner is not "adequate " from the standpoint of international law. 3. The original sentence of 18 years and 4 months was not inadequate, "nor would the conditional reduction of the term of that sentence by one-third under the provisions of the Penal Code of Panama, have given rise to an international responsibility". 4. International responsibility for an unreasonable reduction of the term of imprisonment is not modified by the fact that such reduction was brought about by a general statute without "any inclination on the part of the Government to favor this particular prisoner or to extenuate offenses against aliens ". 5. International responsibility for failure to punish adequately crimes against aliens "is clearly established" in international law and "is not based upon discrimination in favor of the individual offender or upon any breach of local law ". 177402-34- -14 199 6. Taking "into account the fact that Gonzalez was actually imprisoned for a period of slightly more than three years [and that], there was not a total failure to punish ", damages of $5,000 were allowed. SUMMARY OF FACTS This claim resulted from the murder in Panama of James F. Denham, husband and father, respectively, of the claimants, by one Segundo Gonzalez, and the failure of the Panamanian Government to subject the murderer to a degree of punishment corresponding to international standards. Denham settled with his family in the Province of Chiriqui, Colombia (now Republic of Panama), in July 1898. He subsequently developed a considerable business in agriculture, cattle raising, and general merchandising. The evidence in the case indicated that during and prior to the date of the murder of Denham the Province of Chiriqui had been a hotbed of cattle thieves and other corrupt and lawless elements and that this state of affairs had been well known to the Central Government in Panamá City but that no adequate measures had been taken to correct these conditions. The United States alleged that the failure of the local officials to protect resident American citizens and the failure of the local courts to extend them a proper degree of justice gave rise to a certain feeling of impunity on the part of these lawless elements, especially in connection with acts directed against American citizens, and that this laxity contributed to the murder which is the subject of this claim. In this connection the Superior Judge, in sentencing the murderer to a term of imprisonment of 18 years and 4 months made the following significant statement: "Unfortunately, this is not the first case which has been registered in this country of crimes of this nature; hence, the frequent statements of foreigners residing in the Republic, which statements are painful to our patriotism but none the less true, to the effect that there is no protection here for the hard working man and that the |