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ANNEX IX

COMMENTS ON THE DRAFT SCHEME FOR THE PERMANENT COURT.

This work throughout advocates the employment of arbitration commissions, dwelling upon the advantages of such a system over that of a court with permanent judges, and at certain places, lays stress upon the impossibility of agreeing upon a plan for appointing judges that would be satisfactory to litigant nations. The Council, having been charged, under Article 14, to prepare such a plan for the establishment of the Permanent Court of International Justice, and having failed, delegated an Advisory Committee of Jurists to do so, in its stead, and they have submitted a Draft Scheme, which, it is submitted, is so defective that no court that can inspire confidence and have permanency can flourish under it, if indeed, it can ever be erected.

The Report provides that the court shall consist of 15 members: 11 judges and 4 deputy-judges. It contemplates the naming of two persons by each nation of good standing, which names-probably from sixty to a hundred -are to be arranged by the Secretary-General of the League, alphabetically. Thereupon, the Council and the Assembly concurrently are to vote upon them; and, in the first instance, those candidates who obtain an absolute majority of both bodies shall be considered elected, etc.

Why the names should be arranged alphabetically, can have no other significance than that they are to be voted

upon in that order; and there is no way provided by which the name of a candidate may be taken up for consideration in any other order. America, for instance, will not wish to be guided in presenting her candidates by such a qualification. She may prefer to name Mr. Washington and Mr. Webster, rather than Mr. Abbott and Mr. Aaron; and yet, the court may be filled before the names Washington and Webster are reached.

However, in the Assembly there may be no objection and it will be far the easier way to combine and give a majority to every candidate, or to one from each nation, and the Council will then have the whole duty of culling out the surplus names.

In the Council, however, the matter will simply resolve itself into one of trading. The representatives of America, Great Britain and France will maintain, that their nations, of course, must each be represented; but they will not be able to count upon securing the five necessary votes, unless they also agree with two others, that their nations shall also be represented in the Court. These five may not represent the big five; if they do not, any of those nations omitted will be incensed. There will be, however, six other places to fill with judges, and the struggle of each of the remaining four members of the Council to secure a judge each for his nation, can only be estimated by considering the reverse side of the proposition: what member of the Council could, in behalf of his nation, forego the privilege of demanding a judgeship?

That the nine members of the Council will, therefore, if they have the chance, appropriate nine of the eleven places for their respective nations, is a foregone conclusion.

But, the small nations may perceive this in advance and

conclude, that, as the great nations filled the majority of the places in the Council, it would be but fair, that the small nations should fill the majority of the seats in the Permanent Court; and accordingly, being more numerous in the Assembly, they may combine and onlygive majorities to candidates from the small nations, and thereby cut off the possibility of permitting the Council to select candidates from their own, the great nations.

Failure under the above procedure, is to be followed by an attempt through a joint committee of three persons from each body; but a committee cannot overcome the obstacles any more than can the bodies themselves, for the nature of the difficulty is still that emphasized at pages xxi, 10 and 17-18: the jealousy and fear, repectively, between the large and small nations.

No more effective plan for steering both bodies into a deadlock could be devised and any attempt to overcome it will lead to trading in a way that will cause the Shantung incident to fade into insignificance and make impossible the high degree of confidence without which such a court must fail.

While the qualifications in Article 9, that the candidates, as a whole body, should "represent the main forms of civilization and the principal legal systems of the world," are most commendable, they will have as little influence in such a struggle as the Draft-scheme prepares, as the Article has legal value, being wholly without a sanction.

The omission of the chief executive and legislative body from those who are to be consulted by the Members of the Court of the Hague in presenting candidates (Article 6), is somewhat incongruous, as the Members owe their own appointments to those officials.

The whole scheme, while apparently an equal division of the power of appointment between the great and small nations, is simply an extension of the Covenant plan in placing the control of the Court, as well, in the hands of the majority of five of the Council of nine, for these five will be able to prevent the admission of any person who is not satisfactory to them to a place on the bench.

With experience in conflicting opinions in existing courts in mind, it is difficult to perceive any value in an advisory opinion on an hypothetical question given by "from three to five members" of a court of from fifteen to twenty-one, as provided in Article 36.

It is likewise difficult to conceive the justification for the renunciation of the principle of handing down minority opinions in cases in the Court (Article 56), after that right had been expressly provided in regard to inquiries before the Council or the Assembly, in Article 15 of the Covenant.

Although by the Covenant, which must be considered the organic law of the League, the nations limited the agreed jurisdiction to the arbitration of cases of certain categories (Article 13), the Advisory Committee has assumed that the Council may empower the Court "without any special convention giving it jurisdiction" to take connaisance and try such cases (Article 34, Draft-scheme), and even do so in cases of default (idem, Article 52).

There is no provision in the Covenant for an appeal from the decision of the Council. If what has been heralded as the most eminent body of jurists ever assembled can recommend such action by the Council in the face of the Covenant provision for Amendments, where will the Council limit its authority?

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