The Geneva Protocol, by David Hunter Miller
The Geneva Protocol, by David Hunter Miller
The Geneva Protocol, by David Hunter Miller
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CHAPTER VI. 18<br />
peace. We may lay aside trifling disputes which cannot lead to serious differences between States, whether or<br />
not they drag on through years of diplomatic negotiation. Accordingly, we may say that the Covenant in these<br />
provisions covers any international dispute whatever as to international questions in the sense above<br />
mentioned.<br />
Further examining the provisions above quoted, we see that {20} the Members of the League agree in every<br />
such possible case to do one of three things: they agree to submit all disputes either (a) to arbitration or (b) to<br />
judicial settlement or (c) to the Council. <strong>The</strong>y do not agree to submit any particular case or any particular class<br />
of cases to arbitration; they do not agree to submit any particular case or any particular class of cases to<br />
judicial settlement; but they do specifically agree that all cases that are not submitted to the one or to the<br />
other, go to the Council. <strong>The</strong> effect of such submission to the Council will be discussed hereafter; at the<br />
moment it is only necessary to point out that under these provisions the submission to the Council is<br />
obligatory. That submission must, under Article 15, take place, in the absence of submission to arbitration or<br />
to the Court. But the submission to arbitrators or to the Court is voluntary.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first change made in this scheme of the Covenant is that Parties to the <strong>Protocol</strong> agree to accept the<br />
so-called "compulsory" jurisdiction of the Permanent Court of International Justice in the cases mentioned in<br />
paragraph 2 of Article 36 of the Statute of the Court. Thus, in such cases the dispute between the Parties<br />
would go, as a matter of right, at the demand of either one of them, to the Court, where it would be finally<br />
determined. To that extent the jurisdiction of the Council is lessened.<br />
Under the <strong>Protocol</strong>, this acceptance of the so-called compulsory jurisdiction of the Permanent Court of<br />
International Justice is to take place <strong>by</strong> the signatory States within a month after the coming into force of the<br />
<strong>Protocol</strong>, which, as we have seen, would mean within a month after the adoption <strong>by</strong> the Conference on<br />
Reduction of Armaments of the plan for such reduction.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Parties to the <strong>Protocol</strong> thus agree to accept this so-called compulsory jurisdiction of the Permanent Court;<br />
but it is provided that they may do so with appropriate reservations.<br />
Accordingly, it is desirable to consider summarily just what this so-called compulsory jurisdiction of the<br />
Permanent Court of International Justice is.<br />
All that the word "compulsory" in this connection means is "agreed to in advance." <strong>The</strong> general provisions of<br />
the Court {21} Statute[2] describe the jurisdiction of the Court as extending to any case which the Parties,<br />
either after it has arisen or <strong>by</strong> "treaties and conventions in force,"[3] choose to submit. <strong>The</strong> so-called optional<br />
clause relating to the so-called compulsory jurisdiction in effect provides that as to certain defined classes of<br />
cases the parties agree, now, in advance of any dispute, that disputes of those particular characters will be<br />
submitted to the Court.<br />
<strong>The</strong> definition of these classes of disputes is found in Article 36 of the Statute of the Court, and in this regard<br />
follows generally in its language the provisions of the second paragraph of Article 13 of the Covenant, which<br />
declares that these particular classes of disputes are "among those which are generally suitable for submission<br />
to arbitration or judicial settlement."<br />
By the so-called optional clause relating to the Court Statute, it is these classes of disputes as to any or all of<br />
which the jurisdiction of the Court may be accepted as "compulsory ipso facto and without special agreement,<br />
in relation to any other Member or State accepting the same obligation."<br />
<strong>The</strong> classes of "legal disputes" mentioned in Article 36 of the Court Statute are as follows:<br />
"legal disputes concerning: