The Geneva Protocol, by David Hunter Miller

CHAPTER XX. 142
"The Members of the League agree that they will comply with the {237} recommendations contained in any
award of the Arbitration Tribunal set up by the Council as above.
"In the event of any failure to comply with the recommendations of a report concurred in by all the Members
of the Council other than the parties to the dispute or in any award of an arbitration tribunal set up by the
Council as above, the Council shall exert all its influence to secure compliance therewith. If such failure to
carry out the recommendations is accompanied by any resort to war, the sanctions provided for in article 16,
interpreted as provided in this Protocol, shall be applied."
44. The British Delegate explained that the willingness of Governments to amend the Covenant must be
clearly expressed in the Protocol. In no other way could the danger of creating within the League an inner ring
of Powers, bound towards each other by ties and obligations more close than those binding the ordinary
members of the League, be avoided. The drafting of amendments to the Covenant was, however, a technical
matter, and time was short. He therefore suggested that the Council should be asked to set up a committee of
experts to draft the amendments to the Covenant contemplated by the Protocol.
45. These proposals provided the bases of articles 1, 3 and 4 of the Protocol and of paragraph 3 of the
Assembly Resolution of the 2nd October. The bases of articles 2 and 5 had already been established. Article
10 was beginning to take shape in new drafts in substitution for Dr. Benes's definition of an aggressor. On the
21st September these articles were provisionally adopted by the joint drafting committee of the First and
Third Committees. At this stage, therefore, for the first time, the substance of a workable text on the subjects
referred to the First Committee began to emerge from the shadow of discussion.
46. Throughout this period, however, the negotiations had been carried on entirely in the sub-committee in
secret sessions. Although the closest possible touch had been kept by the British Delegation with the
Dominion and Indian Delegations, the British representative felt himself to be in a position {238} of great
responsibility in carrying on the work in the sub-committee. He felt that a stage had been reached where a
wider consultation was necessary, as, with the exception of the Attorney-General of the Irish Free State, who
was unfortunately obliged to return to Ireland about this date, he was the only British member. He proposed,
therefore, that the work of the sub-committee should be reported to the full Committee on which all the
Dominion and Indian Delegations were represented. The full Committee thereupon met on the 24th
September, and then and at further meetings held on the 25th, 26th, 27th and 28th September, the articles of
the Protocol were fully discussed in public sessions. The articles of the Protocol under consideration thus took
their shape in the sub-committee, they were then submitted to the Joint Drafting Committee representing the
First and Third Committees, and were then finally approved after public discussions in Committee No. 1.
Here, then, it will be convenient to deal with the purpose and evolution of each article separately.
The Preamble.
47. The draft of the Preamble, as revised by the Joint Drafting Committee of the First and Third Committees,
was adopted at a plenary session of the First Committee on the 27th September. The Lithuanian Delegate
made a reservation that the reference to territorial security in no way prejudiced existing disputes between
States signing the Protocol. The Portuguese Delegate proposed an amendment to substitute for the word
"territories" in the first sentence, the phrase "territories under the sovereignty of States." The object was to
make it clear that oversea territories under the sovereignty of a State were not excluded, but the British
representative reminded the committee of the nature of the varied character of the territories of the British
Empire, and said that if one class of oversea territories were mentioned, all must be mentioned. The
amendment was rejected.
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Article 1.