Looking at these provisions in their entirety, it will be seen that the engagements taken by the Members of the League relate to "any dispute likely to lead to a rupture." This is the language of both Articles 12 and 15. We may say that this means any dispute whatever, any serious dispute from the point of view of international peace. We may lay aside trifling disputes which cannot lead to serious differences between States, whether or not they drag on through years of diplomatic negotiation. Accordingly, we may say that the Covenant in these provisions covers any international dispute whatever as to international questions in the sense above mentioned. Further examining the provisions above quoted, we see that {20} the Members of the League agree in every such possible case to do one of three things: they agree to submit all disputes either (a) to arbitration or (b) to judicial settlement or (c) to the Council. They do _not_ agree to submit any particular case or any particular class of cases to arbitration; they do _not_ agree to submit any particular case or any particular class of cases to judicial settlement; but they do specifically agree that all cases that are not submitted to the one or to the other, go to the Council. The effect of such submission to the Council will be discussed hereafter; at the moment it is only necessary to point out that under these provisions the submission to the Council is _obligatory_. That submission _must_, under Article 15, take place, in the absence of submission to arbitration or to the Court. But the submission to arbitrators or to the Court is voluntary. The first change made in this scheme of the Covenant is that Parties to the Protocol agree to accept the so-called "compulsory" jurisdiction of the Permanent Court of International Justice in the cases mentioned in paragraph 2 of Article 36 of the Statute of the Court. Thus, in such cases the dispute between the Parties would go, as a matter of right, at the demand of either one of them, to the Court, where it would be finally determined. To that extent the jurisdiction of the Council is lessened. Under the Protocol, this acceptance of the so-called compulsory jurisdiction of the Permanent Court of International Justice is to take place by the signatory States within a month after the coming into force of the Protocol, which, as we have seen, would mean within a month after the adoption by the Conference on Reduction of Armaments of the plan for such reduction. The Parties to the Protocol thus agree to accept this so-called compulsory jurisdiction of the Permanent Court; but it is provided that they may do so with appropriate reservations. Accordingly, it is desirable to consider summarily just what this so-called compulsory jurisdiction of the Permanent Court of International Justice is.