UN General Assembly
1965

150. I deeply regret that in this era of interplanetary travel it should be necessary for me to draw the Assembly's attention to a problem concerning the right to free navigation on international rivers, aright which was referred to in the French National Convention's Decree of 16 November 1792 and is clearly recognized in international law as established in the Treaty of Paris (1814), at the Congresses of Vienna (1815), Berlin (1885), Barcelona (1921), and Lima (1847-48), and various inter-American conferences, in the definitions of the Inter-American Juridical Committee and the Inter-American Council of Jurists and in many bilateral treaties. 151. No matter how incredibly anachronistic it may seem, however, it is an indisputable fact that Paraguay's right to free navigation on an international river which flows through its territory and which constitutes its only water link with the sea is being denied and curtailed.