Panama Canal neutrality protocol

On 10 October 1914 in Washington the acting Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, and the Minister of Panama, Eusebio A. Morales, signed a protocol on the maintenance of neutrality in the waters of the Isthmus of Panama. Both countries remained neutral, and the agreement was meant to ensure that belligerent warships could not use the proximity of their waters to evade the rules of neutrality.

The Panama Canal had been opened to shipping on 15 August 1914, less than two weeks after the outbreak of war in Europe. The canal and the strip of land along it, the Panama Canal Zone, were under the control of the United States. Under the Anglo-American treaty of 1901 the canal was to be open on equal terms to the ships of all nations, in peace and in war alike. Warships could pass through it, but they were not allowed to conduct hostilities in it or to remain there longer than necessary. Right next to the zone, however, lay the waters and ports of Panama itself, including Colón and Panama City at the two entrances to the canal.

The protocol closed this loophole. It provided that a warship of a belligerent state, as well as any vessel, armed or not, used by it as a transport, fleet auxiliary or in any other way for the conduct of hostilities, that made use of hospitality in Panamanian waters would lose the right to the same hospitality in the Canal Zone for three months. The rule also worked the other way. A warship could not, for example, take on supplies in a Panamanian port and immediately afterwards do the same in the American zone.

The agreement of 10 October became part of the broader rules on the neutrality of the canal that President Woodrow Wilson announced in a proclamation of 13 November 1914. Belligerent warships could stay in the waters of the zone for no more than 24 hours, could take on fuel only with the permission of the canal authorities and only in the quantity needed to reach the nearest neutral port, and no more than three warships of one country could be in either of the terminal ports at the same time. Warships could also pass through the canal only if their commander undertook in writing to observe these rules.