"(1) The Third Committee is requested to consider the
{157}
material dealing with security and the reduction of armaments,
particularly the observations of the Governments on the draft
Treaty of Mutual Assistance, prepared in pursuance of
Resolution XIV of the Third Assembly and other plans prepared
and presented to the Secretary-General since the publication
of the draft Treaty, and to examine the obligations contained
in the Covenant of the League in relation to the guarantees
of security which a resort to arbitration and a reduction of
armaments may require:
"(2) The First Committee is requested:
"(_a_) To consider, in view of possible amendments, the
articles in the Covenant relating to the settlement of
disputes;
"(_b_) To examine within what limits the terms of Article
36, paragraph 2, of the Statute establishing the Permanent
Court of International Justice might be rendered more
precise and thereby facilitate the more general acceptance
of the clause;
and thus strengthen the solidarity and the security of the
nations of the world by settling by pacific means all disputes
which may arise between States."
This resolution had two merits, first, that of briefly summarising all
the investigations made in the last four years by the different
organisations of the League in their efforts to establish peace and
bring about the reduction of armaments, and, secondly, that of
indicating the programme of work of the Committees in the hope that,
with the aid of past experience, they would at last attain the end in
view.
The Assembly had assigned to each Committee a distinct and separate
task; to the First Committee, the examination of the pacific settlement
of disputes by methods capable of being applied in every case; to the
Third Committee, the question of the security of nations considered as
a necessary preliminary condition for the reduction of their armaments.
Each Committee, after a general discussion which served to {158} detach
the essential elements from the rest of the problem, referred the
examination of its programme to a Sub-Committee, which devoted a large
number of meetings to this purpose.
The proposals of the Sub-Committees then led to very full debates by
the Committees, which terminated in the texts analysed below.
As, however, the questions submitted respectively to the two Committees
form part of an indivisible whole, contact and collaboration had to be
established between the Committees by means of a Mixed Committee of
nine members and finally by a joint Drafting Committee of four members.
For the same reason, the work of the Committees has resulted in a
single draft protocol accompanied by two draft resolutions for which
the Committees are jointly responsible.