The Geneva Protocol — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Geneva Protocol
John Stuart Mill · en
Careful consideration of the article has shown that it is sufficiently
elastic to allow of all kinds of reservations. Since it is open to the
States to accept compulsory jurisdiction by the Court in respect of
certain of the classes of dispute mentioned and not to accept it in
respect of the rest, it is also open to them only to accept it in
respect of a portion of one of those classes; rights need not be
exercised in their full extent. In giving the undertaking in question,
therefore, States are free to declare that it {171} will not be
regarded as operative in those cases in which they consider it to be
inadmissible.
We can imagine possible and therefore legitimate, reservations either
in connection with a certain class of dispute or, generally speaking,
in regard to the precise stage at which the dispute may be laid before
the Court. While we cannot here enumerate all the conceivable
reservations, it may be worth while to mention merely as examples those
to which we referred in the course of our discussions.
From the class of disputes relating to "the interpretation of a treaty"
there may be excluded, for example, disputes as to the interpretation
of certain specified classes of treaty such as political treaties,
peace treaties, etc.
From the class of disputes relating to "any point of international law"
there may be excluded, for example, disputes as to the application of a
political treaty, a peace treaty, etc., or as to any specified question
or disputes which might arise as the outcome of hostilities initiated
by one of the signatory States in agreement with the Council or the
Assembly of the League of Nations.
Again, there are many possible reservations as to the precise stage at
which a dispute may be laid before the Court. The most far-reaching of
these would be to make the resort to the Court in connection with every
dispute in respect of which its compulsory jurisdiction is recognised
contingent upon the establishment of an agreement for submission of the
case which, failing agreement between the parties, would be drawn up by
the Court itself, the analogy of the provisions of the Hague Convention
of 1907 dealing with the Permanent Court of Arbitration being thus
followed.
It might also be stated that the recognition of the compulsory
jurisdiction of the Court does not prevent the parties to the dispute
from agreeing to resort to a preliminary conciliation procedure before
the Council of the League of Nations or any other {172} body selected
by them, or to submit their disputes to arbitration in preference to
going before the Court.
A State might also, while accepting compulsory jurisdiction by the
Court, reserve the right of laying disputes before the Council of the
League with a view to conciliation in accordance with paragraphs 1-3 of
Article 15 of the Covenant, with the proviso that neither party might,
during the proceedings before the Council, take proceedings against the
other in the Court.