"(b) To examine within what limits the terms of Article 36, paragraph 2, of the Statute establishing the Permanent Court of International Justice might be rendered more precise and thereby facilitate the more general acceptance of the clause;
and thus strengthen the solidarity and the security of the nations of the world by settling by pacific means all disputes which may arise between States."
This resolution had two merits, first, that of briefly summarising all the investigations made in the last four years by the different organisations of the League in their efforts to establish peace and bring about the reduction of armaments, and, secondly, that of indicating the programme of work of the Committees in the hope that, with the aid of past experience, they would at last attain the end in view.
The Assembly had assigned to each Committee a distinct and separate task; to the First Committee, the examination of the pacific settlement of disputes by methods capable of being applied in every case; to the Third Committee, the question of the security of nations considered as a necessary preliminary condition for the reduction of their armaments.
Each Committee, after a general discussion which served to detach the essential elements from the rest of the problem, referred the examination of its programme to a Sub-Committee, which devoted a large number of meetings to this purpose.
The proposals of the Sub-Committees then led to very full debates by the Committees, which terminated in the texts analysed below.
As, however, the questions submitted respectively to the two Committees form part of an indivisible whole, contact and collaboration had to be established between the Committees by means of a Mixed Committee of nine members and finally by a joint Drafting Committee of four members.
For the same reason, the work of the Committees has resulted in a single draft protocol accompanied by two draft resolutions for which the Committees are jointly responsible.
Upon these various texts, separate reports were submitted, which, being approved by the Committees respectively responsible for them, may be considered as an official commentary by the Committees.
These separate reports have here been combined in order to present as a whole the work accomplished by the two Committees and to facilitate explanation.