What these two cases come to is obviously one of two alternatives, namely, either some State is going on with its fighting, with its war, regardless of the Council and regardless of the Protocol, or else there is an armistice and the fighting stops. Under the first circumstance, the provisions as to presumptions and as to the decisions of the Council are alike of no {71} consequence; and, in the second case, the war ends with an armistice as soon as it commences. The drafting of Article 10 of the Protocol is unfortunately obscure; but when the language of the whole Japanese amendment is carefully looked at, it seems to me that it certainly adds nothing to the powers of either the Council or the Assembly in considering disputes arising from domestic questions, and that the legal right of any State to determine and control its own domestic matters remains unquestioned; indeed, it may be said to remain more unquestioned than it is now; for, under the Protocol, that right cannot be questioned by the League, either in Council or in Assembly; it cannot be questioned by the Permanent Court or by Arbitrators; and it cannot be questioned by war. All that is possible is friendly discussion and consideration under Article 11 of the Covenant and that, so far as Members of the League are concerned, is possible now. Of course it might be argued that the various possible decisions and presumptions under Article 10 of the Protocol might make some difference as to the charging of the costs of the aggression under Article 15 of the Protocol; but the possibilities involved are too remote to be worthy of discussion. [1] _Supra_, p. 18, _et seq._ [2] or the Assembly. [3] _Supra_, p. 50, _et seq._ [4] _Supra_, p. 23, _et seq._ [5] pp. 54-63. [6] The text says "previously." Presumably this means before hostilities broke out. It might mean before the "disregard" of the decision that the dispute was domestic. Precisely how a State could "disregard" such a decision, except by resort to war, is not very clear. The French is "qui aura passé outre à un rapport," etc. [7] That is, all the text above quoted as part of sub-head 1 of the second paragraph of Article 10, beginning "has disregarded a unanimous report of the Council." [8] The Japanese proposal regarding this Article as it first stood, was to strike out all the words referring to the "domestic jurisdiction," etc.; the addition of the clause commencing "nevertheless" was a compromise; it would have been a much simpler result and a better one, I think, to have omitted the whole clause, as the Japanese proposed. [9] pp. 61, 67. {72} CHAPTER XII. SANCTIONS. The Protocol of Geneva provides for sanctions or penalties for its breach by a Signatory. Before considering the main sanctions which are set up by the Protocol, it may be mentioned that there are certain provisional measures which may be taken which fall short of the chief sanctions.