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FUR SEALS—JULY 7, 1911
805

Hitoshi Dauké, Shoshii, Third Class of the Imperial Order of the Rising Sun, Director of the Bureau of Fisheries, Department of Agriculture and Commerce;

His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, the Honorable Pierre Botkine, Chamberlain of His Majesty's Court, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Morocco, and Baron Boris Nolde, of the Foreign Office;

Who, after having communicated to one another their respective full powers, which were found to be in due and proper form, have agreed upon the following articles:

Article I

The High Contracting Parties mutually and reciprocally agree that their citizens and subjects respectfully, and all persons subject to their laws and treaties, and their vessels, shall be prohibited, while this Convention remains in force, from engaging in pelagic sealing in the waters of the North Pacific Ocean, north of the thirtieth parallel of north latitude and including the Seas of Bering, Kamchatka, Okhotsk and Japan, and that every such person and vessel offending against such prohibition may be seized, except within the territorial jurisdiction of one of the other Powers, and detained by the naval or other duly commissioned officers of any of the Parties to this Convention, to be delivered as soon as practicable to an authorized official of their own nation at the nearest point to the place of seizure, or elsewhere as may be mutually agreed upon; and that the authorities of the nation to which such person or vessel belongs alone shall have jurisdiction to try the offense and impose the penalties for the same; and that the witnesses and proofs necessary to establish the offense, so far as they are under the control of any of the Parties to this Convention, shall also be furnished with all reasonable promptitude to the proper authorities having jurisdiction to try the offense.

Article II

Each of the High Contracting Parties further agrees that no person or vessel shall be permitted to use any of its ports or harbors or any part of its territory for any purposes whatsoever connected with the operations of pelagic sealing in the waters within the protected area mentioned in Article I.

Article III

Each of the High Contracting Parties further agrees that no sealskins taken in the waters of the North Pacific Ocean within the protected area mentioned in Article I, and no sealskins identified as the species known as Callorhinus alascanus, Callorhinus ursinus, and Callorhinus kurilensis, and belonging to the American, Russian or Japanese herds, except such as are taken under the authority of the respective Powers to which the breeding grounds of such herds belong and have been officially marked and certified as