The Court will now consider the events subsequent to the period 1904-1909.

The Siamese authorities did not raise any query about the Annex I map as between themselves and France or Cambodia, or expressly repudiate it as such, until the 1958 negotiations in Bangkok, when, inter alia, the question of Preah Vihear came under discussion between Thailand and Cambodia. Nor was any question raised even after 1934-1935, when Thailand carried out a survey of her own in this region, and this survey had, in Thailand's view, established a divergence between the map line and the true line of the watershed - a divergence having the effect of placing the Temple in Cambodia. Although, after this date, Thailand eventually produced some maps of her own showing Preah Vihear as being in Thailand, she continued, even for public and officia1 purposes, to use the Annex 1 map, or other maps showing Preah Vihear as lying in Cambodia, without raising any query about the matter (her explanations as to this will be considered presently). Moreover, the Court finds it difficult to overlook such a fact as, for instance, that in 1937, even after Thailand's own survey in 1934-1935, and in the same year as the conclusion of a treaty with France in which, as will be seen, the established common frontiers were reaffirmed, the Siamese Royal Survey Department produced a map showing Preah Vihear as lying in Cambodia.

Thailand had several opportunities of raising with the French authorities the question of the Annex 1 map. There were first of all the negotiations for the 1925 and 1937 Treaties of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between France, on behalf of Indo-China, and Siam. These Treaties, although they provided for a general process of revision or replacement of previous Agreements, excluded from this process the existing frontiers as they had been established under the Boundary Settlements of 1893, 1904 and 1907. Thereby, and in certain more positive provisions, the Parties confirmed the existing frontiers, whatever they were. These were occasions (particularly in regard to the negotiations for the 1937 Treaty, which occurred only two years after Thailand's own survey of the frontier regions had disclosed, in her belief, a serious divergence between the map line and the watershed line at Preah Vihear) on which it would have been natural for Thailand to raise the matter, if she considered the map indicating the frontier at Preah Vihear to be incorrect - occasions on which she could and should have done so if that was her belief. She did not do so and she even, as has been seen, produced a map of her own in 1937 showing Preah Vihear as being in Cambodia. That this map may have been intended for internal military use does not seem to the Court to make it any less evidence of Thailand's state of mind. The inference must be - particularly in regard to the 1937 occasion - that she accepted or still accepted the Annex 1 map, and the line it indicated, even if she believed it incorrect, even if, after her own survey of 1934-1935, she thought she knew it was incorrect.

Thailand having temporarily corne into possession of certain parts of Cambodia, including Preah Vihear, in 1941, the Ministry of Information of Thailand published a work entitled "Thailand during national reconstruction" in which it was stated in relation to Preah Vihear that it had now been "retaken" for Thailand. This has been represented by Thailand as being an error on the part of a minor official. Nevertheless, similar language, suggesting that Thailand had been in possession of Preah Vihear only since about 1940, was used by representatives of Thailand in the territorial negotiations that took place between Thailand and Cambodia at Bangkok in 1958.

After the war, by a Settlement Agreement of November 1946 with France, Thailand accepted a reversion to the status quo ante 1941. It is Thailand's contention that this reversion to the status quo did not affect Preah Vihear because Thailand already had sovereignty over it before the war. The Court need not discuss this contention, for whether Thailand did have such sovereignty is precisely what is in issue in these proceedings. The important point is that, in consequence of the war events, France agreed to set up a Franco-Siamese Conciliation Commission consisting of the two representatives of the Parties and three neutral Commissioners, whose terms of reference were specifically to go into, and make recommendations on an equitable basis in regard to, any complaints or proposals for revision which Thailand might wish to make as to, inter alia, the frontier settlements of 1904 and 1907. The Commission met in 1947 in Washington, and here therefore was an outstanding opportunity for Thailand to claim a rectification of the frontier at Preah Vihear on the ground that the delimitation embodied a serious error which would have caused Thailand to reject it had she known of the error in 1908-1909. In fact, although Thailand made complaints about the frontier line in a considerable number of regions, she made none about Preah Vihear. She even (12 May 1947) filed with the Commission a map showing Preah Vihear as lying in Cambodia. Thailand contends that this involved no adverse implications as regards her claim to the Temple, because the Temple area was not in issue before the Commission, that it was other regions that were under discussion, and that it was in relation to these that the map was used. But it is precisely the fact that Thailand had raised these other questions, but not that of Preah Vihear, which requires explanation; for, everything else apart, Thailand was by this time well aware, from certain local happenings in relation to the Temple, to be mentioned presently, that France regarded Preah Vihear as being in Cambodian territory - even if this had not already and long since been obvious from the frontier line itself, as mapped by the French authorities and communicated to the Siamese Government in 1908. The natural inference from Thailand's failure to mention Preah Vihear on this occasion is, again, that she did not do so because she accepted the frontier at this point as it was drawn on the map, irrespective of its correspondence with the watershed line.

Part 13