5. A standing international commission shall be appointed whose duty it shall be to summon all the members of the international community to the Conferences, to make previous inquiries as to the proposals and motions which are to be brought before the Conference and to inform all participants of them, and to prepare and carry out all other business which the Conferences may from time to time entrust to it. 6. Rules of procedure for the Conferences shall be elaborated, which shall govern the conduct of the proceedings of the Conferences, so that the proceedings can follow a defined course without degenerating into a time-wasting discussion. 7. The question of the presidency of the Conferences shall be settled once for all, so that no room be left for quarrels and jealousies about precedence. It might perhaps be found expedient before every Conference to decide on the presidency by lot. 8. All resolutions come into force only when and so far as they are ratified by the respective states. On the other hand, every state binds itself, once and for all, to carry out in good faith the resolutions which it has ratified. 9. All states bind themselves to submit to the decisions of the international tribunals to which they have appealed, so far as these decisions are within the competence of the respective tribunals. Something like this would be the ground-plan of a constitution of the international community. Rules 5-7 are demanded by the nature of the case; rules 1-4 and 8-9 contain nothing new, but merely express what observation would show to be the legal position at present. [Sidenote: The proposed constitution leaves state-sovereignty intact.] 27. It must be particularly remarked that such a constitution can in no way infringe on the full sovereignty of individual states. Apart from the fact that the idea of sovereignty indicates an absolute independence of any higher earthly power, that idea has never acquired a rigid and uniformly recognized content. Times and circumstances have influenced and shaped it in different states and in the mouths of different authorities. This development of the idea, an idea which has won a place for itself and the retention of which seems desirable despite all opposition, may go further still in the future. [Sidenote: The equality of states.]