The Geneva Protocol, by David Hunter Miller

CHAPTER XX. 71
CHAPTER XX.
THE "AMENDED" COVENANT.
I trust that no one appreciates better than myself that examination of a document bit by bit and piece by piece
tends to blind the vision. One sees the trees and not the forest. Worse than that, one gets a false vision, a
picture, if I may change the metaphor, of the buttons on the coat but not of the man wearing the coat and still
less of the soul within the man.
A critical examination of an international legal document leads to a discussion of trivialities and to hypotheses
of almost impossible possibilities. Of course it is true that the carrying out of a great international agreement
in the light of the facts and conditions of international life as they arise does not proceed along the technical
lines that I have followed, but rather along those lines of policy which really control international action. I do
not mean necessarily selfish policy, but policy in the larger sense of decisions based upon the best judgment
of those in power for the time being.
What really ought to be done in studying any proposal such as the Protocol of Geneva, is to realize, if
possible, the ultimate purpose of the document and to visualize, so far as we can, what would happen if it
came into force, not so much what might happen under a particular phrase, but how the international relations
of the world would proceed if the whole agreement were a reality.
I have mentioned more than once that the Protocol of Geneva contemplates that its provisions shall form part
of the Covenant; in other words, that the two documents shall be amalgamated, forming an amended
Covenant. With the hope of facilitating a general view, I have endeavored to put the two documents together
in the form of an "amended" Covenant, and the result of this effort is set out below.[1]
Looking at the text of this "amended" Covenant, one may observe that while twenty of the present twenty-six
Articles {107} remain unchanged in form, Articles 12 to 17, inclusive, are expanded and somewhat rewritten;
and eight Articles are added; and I do not think that the text of the "amended" Covenant could be phrased in
much less language than it appears below.
Of course the length of a document in itself is not of much consequence; but it is not unimportant to observe
that the "amended" Covenant is very much longer than the Covenant as it now reads. This fact, I say, is
important, because it is the visible evidence of a reality. The Protocol of Geneva is not a mere completion of
the provisions of the Covenant. Advocates of the Protocol make a very serious mistake when they erroneously
say that the Protocol of Geneva is merely a rounding out of incomplete and partial agreements of the
Covenant.
And it must be borne in mind that new or varied phrases in one Article may change the whole; the amended
Covenant is altered not only in those Articles which may be textually amended, but throughout; I attempted to
show this in detail as to Article 10 of the Covenant[2]; like any other document, the entire new paper must be
read together.
What the Protocol of Geneva does is to create a new and a different League of Nations. It is true that what I
may call the procedural and structural functions of the League are not changed; but the system of international
relations which is now set up under the League is so much changed that one may properly say that it is an
entirely new and different system.
To my mind, there are three outstanding features of the "amended" Covenant. It creates a complete system of
compulsory arbitration; it consecrates the legality of the status quo; and it is a general defensive alliance.
Now let us compare these three features of the "amended" Covenant with the ideas of the existing Covenant.