Re Guzmán and Latamble

• Jurisdiction: Cuba
• Docket Number: Case No. 43
• Date: 12 February 1934
• Court: Supreme Court (Cuba)

Cuba, Supreme Court.

Case No. 43

In re Guzmán and Latamble.

Territory — International Leases — United States Naval Station on Guantánamo Bay in Cuba — Whether Foreign Territory in relation to Cuba.

The Facts.—The defendants had been found guilty of importing three hogs from the United States naval station at Caimanera, on Guantánamo Bay, into a neighbouring place in Cuba, without payment of customs duties. The defendants claimed that the hogs had already been in Cuba when they were at the naval station, and therefore that they had not brought them in without payment of duties. Upon appeal by the defendants,

Held: that the conviction must be affirmed, for “the territory of that Naval Station is for all legal effects regarded as foreign”.1

¹ The Agreement for the Lease to the United States of Lands in Cuba for Coaling and Naval Stations, signed on February 16/23, 1903, provided in Article III: “While on the one hand the United States recognises the continuance of the ultimate sovereignty of the Republic of Cuba over the above described areas of land and water, on the other hand the Republic of Cuba consents that during the period of the occupation by the United States of the said areas under the terms of this Agreement the United States shall exercise complete jurisdiction and control over and within said areas with the right to acquire (under conditions to be hereafter agreed upon by the two Governments) for the public purposes of the United States any land or other property therein by purchase or by exercise of eminent domain with full compensation to the owners thereof.” (Malloy, Treaties, Conventions … between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1776–1909, I, p. 358.)

The Lease to the United States by Cuba...