Commercial treaty Commercial treaty A commercial treaty is a formal agreement between states for the purpose of establishing mutual rights and regulating conditions of trade. It is a bilateral act whereby definite arrangements are entered into by each contracting party towards the other—not mere concessions. For example, the Methuen Treaty was a commercial treaty between Portugal and England. Another example, between the close of the Napoleonic wars of 1815 and the year 1860, the tariff system of Great Britain was changed from elaborate protection to practically complete free trade. An attempt had indeed been made in 1786 to modify the rigidly protective
Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation Between Argentina and the United Kingdom former colony. The treaty also allowed British subjects to keep their religion, and to build their own churches and cemeteries. This was an unprecedented step in the history of the freedom of religion in Argentina, as it was the first time that a religion other than the Catholic Church was legally allowed in the country. The treaty set as well an agreement to stop the Atlantic slave trade. In the context of the dispute over the Falkland Islands (), Lowell S. Gustafson argues that by signing the Treaty without making any reservation about Argentina's settlement on the islands by 1825,