_Sphere of Application of Methods of Pacific Procedure_.--Necessary as
the system which we have laid down is for the purpose of ensuring
settlement of all disputes, in applying it, the pacific aim which
underlies it must be the only guide. It must not be diverted to other
purposes and used as an occasion for chicanery and tendencious
proceedings by which the cause of peace would lose rather than gain.
A few exceptions to the rule have also had to be made in order to
preserve the elasticity of the system. These are cases in which the
claimant must be nonsuited, the claim being one which has to be
rejected _in limine_ by the Council, the Permanent Court of
International Justice or the arbitrators, as the case may be.
The disputes to which the system will not apply are of three kinds:
_Article 4, paragraph 5._
1. The first concerns disputes relating to questions which, at some
time prior to the entry into force of the Protocol have been the
subject of a unanimous recommendation by the Council accepted by one of
the parties concerned. It is essential to {181} international order
and to the prestige of the Council that its unanimous recommendations,
which confer a right upon the State accepting them, shall not be called
into question again by means of a procedure based upon compulsory
arbitration. Failing a friendly arrangement, the only way which lies
open for the settlement of disputes to which these recommendations may
give rise is recourse to the Council in accordance with the procedure
at present laid down in the Covenant.
_Article 4, paragraph 7._
2. The same applies to disputes which arise as the result of measures
of war taken by one or more signatory States in agreement with the
Council or the Assembly of the League of Nations. It would certainly
not be admissible that compulsory arbitration should become a weapon in
the hands of an enemy to the community to be used against the freedom
of action of those who, in the general interest, seek to impose upon
that enemy respect for his engagements.
In order to avoid all difficulty of interpretation, these first two
classes of exceptions have been formally stated in the Protocol.
3. There is a third class of disputes to which the new system of
pacific settlement can also not be applied. These are disputes which
aim at revising treaties and international acts in force, or which seek
to jeopardise the existing territorial integrity of signatory States.
The proposal was made to include these exceptions in the Protocol, but
the two Committees were unanimous in considering that, both from the
legal and from the political point of view, the impossibility of
applying compulsory arbitration to such cases was so obvious that it
was quite superfluous to make them the subject of a special provision.
It was thought sufficient to mention them in this report.
{182}
6.--ROLE OF THE ASSEMBLY UNDER THE SYSTEM SET UP BY THE PROTOCOL.
_Article 6._