Joaquín D. Casasús

Joaquín D. Casasús was a lawyer and economist from Tabasco who became influential in the financial legislation of the Porfirian period. After legal study in Mérida he worked in his home state's administration and then in banking and public credit institutions. His study of Mexico's London debt accompanied a career in the Chamber of Deputies and Senate and on commissions dealing with commercial law, currency, and credit. ¹

At Washington he signed the Rio Grande irrigation convention with Secretary of State Elihu Root on 21 May 1906. The agreement provided for delivery of 60,000 acre-feet annually to the Mexican canal near Ciudad Juárez after completion of the American storage and distribution works, with proportional reductions during extraordinary drought or serious accidents. Mexico in turn waived specified claims to the river's waters. ²

In 1911 Casasús acted as Mexico's agent in the Chamizal arbitration. His opening argument maintained that the earlier boundary treaties fixed the international line and that the disputed land consequently belonged to Mexico. The tribunal's majority awarded Mexico land south of the pre-1864 channel, but American objections prevented the decision from ending the dispute. ^{3, 4}

Casasús also translated Longfellow and classical Latin poets and published original verse. He directed the Mexican Academy of Language in his final years. Following Díaz's fall he lived abroad, establishing a legal practice in New York, where he died in 1916. ¹