The Geneva Protocol, by David Hunter Miller

CHAPTER XX. 135
of armaments may require;
"(2.) The First Committee is requested--
"(a.) To consider, in view of possible amendments, the articles in the Covenant relating to the settlement of
disputes;
"(b.) To examine within what limits the terms of article 36, paragraph 2, of the Statute establishing the
Permanent Court of International Justice might be rendered more precise, and thereby facilitate the more
general acceptance of the clause;
"And thus strengthen the solidarity and the security of the nations of the world by settling, by pacific means,
all disputes which may arise between States."
10. This resolution was carried unanimously by the Assembly, which thus deputed the preparatory work to its
First Committee (dealing with legal and constitutional questions) and its Third Committee (dealing with
reduction of armaments).
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11. It will be more convenient at once to consider the final results of the labours of the two Committees,
leaving for the moment any detailed account of the progress of their work, in order to see how the draft
Protocol which they submitted to the Full Assembly on the 1st October gave effect to the ideas which had
been proclaimed in the course of the earlier debate.
12. In the first place it was necessary to complete the scheme of arbitration and conciliation provided in the
Covenant. The Covenant itself did not provide for every eventuality, and by failing to offer pacific means of
settlement of all disputes, it left open, or seemed to leave open, in certain circumstances resort to force.
Especially was this so in article 12 of the Covenant, whereby the Members of the League agreed "in no case to
resort to war until three months after the award by the arbitrators or the report by the Council." Further,
paragraph 7 of article 15 of the Covenant laid down that "if the Council fails to reach a report which is
unanimously agreed to by the Members thereof, other than the representatives of one or more of the parties to
the dispute, the Members of the League reserve to themselves the right to take such action as they shall
consider necessary for the maintenance of right and justice." Under article 2 of the Protocol "the signatory
States agree in no case to resort to war either with one another or against a State which, if the occasion arises,
accepts all the obligations hereinafter set out, except in case of resistance to acts of aggression or when acting
in agreement with the Council or the Assembly of the League of Nations in accordance with the provisions of
the Covenant and of the present Protocol." The signatory States having agreed in no case to resort to war, the
Protocol proceeds to prohibit the arbitrament of force and to provide a complete system for the pacific
settlement of disputes. As regards cases covered by paragraph 2 of article 36 of the statute of the Permanent
Court of International Justice, the signatory States bind themselves to recognize as obligatory the jurisdiction
of that Court, "but without prejudice to the right of any State, when {224} acceding to the special Protocol
provided for in the said article and opened for signature on the 16th December, 1920, to make reservations
compatible with the said clause" (article 3). As regards other subjects of dispute, the Protocol provides a
procedure (article 4) which supplements and completes that defined in article 15 of the Covenant. Briefly,
under this procedure, if the Council is at the outset unable to effect a settlement, it persuades the parties to
submit to arbitration. If neither party should be willing to go to arbitration, the Council again takes the matter
into consideration: If it reaches a unanimous decision, the parties are bound to accept that decision: if it fails
to achieve unanimity, the Council itself refers to arbitrators, whose award is final and binding on the parties to
the dispute.
13. Thus for every dispute that may arise there is a procedure of pacific settlement, and provision has been