The Geneva Protocol

John Stuart Mill · en
In the first place the paper is called a Protocol.  The precise reason
for the use of this term does not appear; but it is probably due to the
fact that the Protocol of Geneva is in a sense supplementary to other
international agreements such as the Covenant of the League of Nations
and the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice; and
perhaps because the {4} Protocol is intended to be preliminary to
amendments to the Covenant (Article I, paragraph 1, of the Protocol).

Allusion is made to this provisional character of the Protocol of
Geneva in the Report[1] made by the First and Third Committees to the
Fifth Assembly of the League of Nations, where it is said:

    "When the Covenant has been amended in this way
    some parts of the Protocol will lose their value as between
    the said States: some of them will have enriched the
    Covenant, while others, being temporary in character, will have
    lost their object.

    The whole Protocol will remain applicable to relations
    between signatory States which are Members of the
    League of Nations and signatory States outside the
    League,[2] or between States coming within the latter
    category.

    It should be added that, as the League realizes its aim
    of universality, the amended Covenant will take the place,
    as regards all States, of the separate régime of the Protocol."


Of course, as is pointed out in some detail by Satow (Diplomatic
Practice, Second Edition, Vol. II, pages 270 _et seq._), the word
"protocol" is used with quite a number of different meanings.  In the
present case the meaning of the word is nothing more nor less than
treaty or convention.

It is naturally impossible to consider or discuss the effect of the
Protocol of Geneva without constant reference to the text of the
Covenant, to which the Protocol refers throughout.  It is also
necessary to consider to some extent the Statute of the Permanent Court
of International Justice and even certain of the provisions of the
Treaties of Peace, other than the Covenant.

Moreover, as any consideration of the legal situation created by the
Protocol must assume that the document has come into force, it will be
interesting to sum up the provisions of the Protocol in that regard,
particularly as they are somewhat unusual.



[1] The English text of this Report is Annex C, p. 156.

[2] From the theory that the Protocol may properly be signed by
non-Members of the League, I dissent.  See _infra_, p. 10., _et seq._




{5}

CHAPTER III.

THE COMING INTO FORCE OF THE PROTOCOL.

The Protocol is dated at Geneva on October 2nd, 1924.  It is drawn up
in both French and English and the text of both languages is authentic.
It is written in a single original.  It was recommended to the Members
of the League for acceptance by a resolution[1] unanimously passed in
the Assembly by the affirmative vote of 48 Members of the League, and
it has been signed by the representatives of various countries.