The Geneva Protocol, by David Hunter Miller

CHAPTER V. 14
CHAPTER V.
RELATIONS INTER SE OF THE SIGNATORIES TO THE PROTOCOL.
It is here assumed that only Members of the League of Nations may become parties to the Protocol of
Geneva[1]; the Protocol is a development of the Covenant and it would, in any view, be logically impossible
for any State, not a Member of the League, to become a Signatory to the Protocol; on the other hand,
Members of the League are, of course, not obligated to sign or to ratify the Protocol of Geneva.
Accordingly, if the Protocol shall come into force, the Powers of the world, from the point of view of the
Protocol, will, at least theoretically, be divided into three classes:
1. Members of the League of Nations who are parties to the Protocol.
2. Members of the League of Nations who are not parties to the Protocol.
3. Non-Members of the League of Nations who are not parties to the Protocol.
From this it follows, again looking at the matter from the point of view of the Protocol of Geneva, that the
international relations of the various countries of the world would fall into the following six classes:
1. Relations inter se of the Signatories to the Protocol.
2. Relations inter se of the Members of the League not Signatories to the Protocol.
3. Relations inter se of non-Members of the League.
4. Relations of the Signatories to the Protocol with the Members of the League not Signatories thereto.
5. Relations of Members of the League not Signatories to the Protocol with States non-Members of the
League.
6. Relations of the Members of the League Signatories to the Protocol with States non-Members of the
League.
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It is proposed in this discussion first to consider the first of the above six classes, namely, the relations of the
Signatories to the Protocol, inter se; and this discussion will proceed primarily on the assumption that the
obligations of the Protocol are carried out.
In numerous places the Protocol speaks of the parties thereto as "the signatory States," e. g., Articles 1, 2, 3, 8,
11, etc. It is curious this is so in view of the meticulous insistence by the British Dominions at the Peace
Conference, on the use, throughout the text of the Covenant generally, of the expression "Members of the
League" instead of "States Members of the League."[2]
Certainly it is contemplated that ratification of the Protocol may be made on behalf of the British Dominions.
Accordingly, I think that the use in the Protocol of the expression "signatory States" is probably an
inadvertence, as in no proper international sense of the word are the British Dominions States, despite the fact
that they have an international status under the League of Nations and even otherwise.[3]