trial of cases is small. It is partly because there is no provision for spreading the expense of the Court, or, rather, of the trial tribunals, over all the members of the system. The parties to the case pay all the expenses.1 That means that almost none of the expense of the system is carried as an overhead charge. The result may be estimated by imagining that the salaries of judges were included in the costs of litigation in national jurisprudence. For great states this factor is not of supreme importance. But where the parties bear equal shares of the expense of the trial the smaller state may well find the cost prohibitive. As has been seen, efforts were made in 1907 to remedy some of these defects. Between 1899 and 1907 some thirty treaties were concluded among states which were members of the Hague system providing for obligatory arbitration in certain cases.2 The Conference voted, in commission, on several proposals of this sort, and in all cases the proposals commanded a majority of the votes-in several cases threefourths of those voting. The conference finally adopted by unanimous vote a resolution in favor of obligatory arbitration in principle, and of its extension by bilaterial conventions. In addition to this, provisions were adopted for inducing arbitration by action of member states not parties to the dispute in reminding the parties of the possibility of having recourse to the Hague Court, and provisions whereby one party to a dispute may notify the Bureau and, through the Bureau, its opponent, of its willingness to submit the dispute to arbitration.5 Two or three other decisions were taken at The Hague in 1907 which deserve special attention in this connection. There was adopted as the Second Convention of the Conference in 1907 an agreement providing against the use 'I H.C. '07, Art. 85. 'Hershey, § 313. Final Act of Second Conference, Pars. 19-21, below, in Apper fix A, Document No. 9. *I H.C. '07, Art. 48, Par. 1. Same, Pars. 3, 4. ur. of force in the collection of contract debts,1 the agreement being subject to the proviso that the debtor state should not refuse arbitration on the question.2 By this agreement and counter-agreement obligatory arbitration was, in effect, provided for upon this subject. In the debates in the Conference the advocates of obligatory arbitration sought the adoption of this Convention on its own merits, being careful, prior to its adoption, not to put it forward as an agreement for obligatory arbitration. Likewise the opposition solemnly maintained that they were voting, not for obligatory arbitration, but against the use of force in the collection of international contract debts. After the Convention was adopted there was no doubt about what had been done. The Conference of 1907 likewise adopted a Convention for the establishment of an International Prize Court.3 It was provided that certain cases could be carried to that court by parties under certain circumstances as they arose.* Here also, in effect, was automatic or obligatory jurisdiction. In the event the Convention was not put into operation, but the reason does not lie directly in the feature just mentioned, which was accepted by all parties. Similarly, the Conference drew up a convention for a new Court of Arbitral Justice, and provision was made in this Convention for what amounts to obligatory arbitration in default of affirmative action of one party to a dispute where the other has taken the case to the Court. This Convention also has failed of adoption, but likewise for reasons only remotely connected with the feature of obligatory arbitration. Mention of the proposals for new courts which were made in 1907, however, leads to an entirely new field. Attention must now be given to proposals for new international courts which were brought forward between 1907 and 1920. Already in 1907 it was suggested that the situation demanded not a revision of the old plan, but the creation of a new one;1 and, as has been seen, two attempts were made at The Hague to bring this about. Finally, in 1920 an attempt was made to create a new court which should operate under the League of Nations, albeit as a distinct body. To these successive efforts we must now turn. CHAPTER XVI PROPOSED INTERNATIONAL COURTS N the course of the criticism of the Hague system of I international arbitration, movement for an improvement in the methods of the judicial settlement of international disputes which led to the revision of the Hague Convention in 1907, three outstanding efforts have been made to create new international judicial bodies. A study of these efforts, and a comparison of the arrangements proposed with those of 1899 and 1907, will throw much light on the present status of international judicial organization and upon the place of judicial settlement in international organization as a whole. The first effort was the signing, at the Second Conference at The Hague, in 1907, of a convention for the creation of an International Prize Court.1 In some ways this is the most radical step ever taken in the field of international organization.2 3 4 The International Prize Court was to be composed of fifteen jurists appointed by the participating nations according to a plan whereby the judges appointed by the eight Great Powers-as things stood in 1907-were to sit at all times on the court, while those appointed by the lesser powers were to be present in rotation, in such a way that judges chosen by powers of secondary rank would appear less frequently than those chosen by the Great Powers, but more frequently than those chosen by powers of third rank, 2 1 1Scott, Conventions, 188-203, cited hereafter as XII H.C. '07. Higgins, 431-444. XII H.C. '07, Art. 14. Art. 15. 24 and so on. Nations were always to be represented on the bench in cases arising from a war in which they had participated, but judges who had been parties to cases in national courts were debarred from hearing those cases in the International Prize Court, and the judges in general were barred from appearing as advocates before the court. /The general expenses of the court, including the salaries of the judges, were to be paid entirely from a general fund contributed by member states The Bureau and Administrative Council created by the Hague Convention of 1899 were to serve this court as well as the Court of Arbitration.1 In matters of procedure equally radical steps were taken. The court was given control over the use of languages in pleadings, with provision for the use in all cases of the language of the national court where the case had first appeared. Supplementary evidence might be called for, or even taken directly by, the court. The discussion of cases before the court was to be public, subject to the right of either party to the case to demand privacy. Even in such an event minutes of the discussion were to be kept, signed, and published with the judgment. Costs of the trial were to be borne by the unsuccessful litigant.2 In the matter of jurisdiction the Prize Court Convention went still further. The cases which might be brought before the court on appeal were defined in advance. The parties capable of bringing appeals were so defined as to include not only neutral states but neutral individuals, and even citizens of belligerent enemy powers. Normally, cases might be carried to the court only after final judgment in the national courts. But if this were delayed over two years the case might be taken direct to the international court.3 In either event action was to be brought in the inter 'Arts. 16, 17, 20, 22, 47. Arts. 24, 36, 39, 45, 46. |