49. Article 2 was intended to make all aggressive war illegal. Exceptions were, however, made to safeguard (1) the right of a State to fight in self-defence, and (2) the position of a State acting in accordance with the provisions of the Covenant or the Protocol. A proposal, strongly urged, to substitute the words "resort to force" for the words "resort to war" was rejected. _Article 3._ 50. Article 3 provides for the compulsory recognition of the jurisdiction of the Permanent Court. The Joint Drafting Committee proposed to remove this article from the Protocol, as certain Delegations felt it went beyond the Assembly Resolution. The British Empire Delegation feared that this might result in the separation of the three principles--arbitration, security and disarmament. At the suggestion of the British representative, therefore, the article was retained. As a result of the discussions on this matter, it was generally agreed that the power to make reservations to article 36 of the Permanent Court Statute was much wider than had been at first believed. It was understood that the proposed British reservation was within the limits admissible. _Article 4._ 51. Article 4 was designed to extend the system of {240} arbitration contained in the Covenant and to fill the existing gap in article 15 of the Covenant, by which the parties to a dispute recover their liberty of action and are entitled to resort to war if the Members of the Council are unable to agree upon a unanimous report. In the sub-committee a strong feeling manifested itself against unanimous decisions of the Council being binding in cases where one party to a dispute, but not both, desired arbitration. Certain of the smaller States, in particular, felt that such a system gave too much power to the Council, which was already regarded as a body which expressed only the will of the great Powers. 52. Paragraphs 2 (_a_) and (_b_) of article 4 were drafted to avoid this difficulty. Arbitration is to be compulsory at the request of one of the parties, and the Council is given power to appoint the arbitral body if the parties cannot agree as to its constitution. A unanimous decision of the Council is only to be binding where none of the parties ask for arbitration. If, therefore, any party wishes to avoid a decision by the Council, it has only to ask for arbitration. For similar reasons, the words "accepted by one of the parties" were added after the words "decision of the Council" in paragraph 5.