The Geneva Protocol, by David Hunter Miller

CHAPTER XII. 53
the mutually support one another Covenant the signatory States in the financial and economic give a joint and
several measures which are taken undertaking to come to the under this Article, in order to assistance of the
State attacked minimize the loss and or threatened, and to give each inconvenience resulting from the other
mutual support by means above measures, and that they of facilities and reciprocal will mutually support one
exchanges as regards the another in resisting any special provision of raw materials and measures aimed at
one of their supplies of every kind, openings number by the Covenant-breaking of credits, transport and
transit, State, and that they and for this purpose to take all will take the necessary steps to measures in their
power to afford passage through their preserve the safety of territory to the forces of any communications by
land and by sea of the Members of the League of the attacked or threatened which are co-operating to State."
protect the covenants of the League."
There are certain other provisions of the Protocol regarding sanctions which should be mentioned at least for
the sake of completeness.
It is the Council[10] which declares that sanctions are at an end and that "normal conditions be re-established"
(Article 14).
To the "extreme limit of its capacity," all costs of an aggression are to be borne by the aggressor (Article 15).
The language concerning the extent of the liability involved is very sweeping, going much farther than the
categories of damage mentioned in Annex I of the Reparation clauses of the Treaty of Versailles.
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The plans to be drawn up by the council for the detailed application of the economic and financial sanctions
are to be "communicated" to the Signatories--in other words, they are advisory, not binding (Article 12).
Here it should be said that the final words of this Article 12 mention "the Members of the League and the
other signatory States." These words imply the possibility of States signatory to the Protocol which are
non-Members of the League. As pointed out above,[11] no such possibility exists, in my opinion. Even if such
a theoretic possibility existed, it would be absurd to suppose that any State would sign the Protocol, with
obligations going beyond those of the Covenant, while still being outside the privileges of the Covenant;
however, the question is of no special importance here.
The main sanctions of the Protocol, as among the Parties to the Protocol, may be thus summed up: a war of
aggression is an international crime; a Signatory which either avows itself an aggressor or refuses an armistice
after hostilities have broken out, commits this crime; and accordingly the other Signatories, upon the call of
the Council, unite in the defence of the Signatory which is not the aggressor, according to their respective
capacities; which means that if and to the extent that they are able to do so, they contribute by force to the
defence against the aggression, as well as by economic and financial measures.
But in view of the other agreements of the Protocol regarding pacific settlement of disputes and its covenants
against war, the chief sanctions of the Protocol would never come into play against a Signatory, unless that
State finally decided to defy the public opinion of the world and to make into a scrap of paper its own solemn
written pledge.
[1] Annex C, p. 156 at p. 196.
[2] If there were two parties to the conflict, either one or both might be aggressor. See Article 11 of the
Protocol.
[3] I think this means upon all the Signatories. The system of the Protocol is flexible as to the extent to which
the Sanctions are to be applied by a particular signatory; but all Signatories come under the same legal