The Geneva Protocol

by David Hunter Miller

Article 4, paragraph 3.

Unanimous decision by the Council.—If arbitration is refused by both parties the case will be referred back to the Council, but this time it will acquire a special character. Refusal of arbitration implies the consent of both parties to a final settlement of the dispute by the Council. It implies recognition of an exceptional jurisdiction of the Council. It denotes that the parties prefer the Council's decision to an arbitral award.

Resuming the examination of the question, the Council has not only the latitude which it customarily possesses. It is armed with full powers to settle the question finally and irrevocably if it is unanimous. Its decision, given unanimously by all the members other than those representing parties to the dispute, is imposed upon the parties with the same weight and the same force as the arbitration award which it replaces.

Article 4, paragraph 4.

Second case of Compulsory Arbitration.—If the Council does not arrive at a unanimous decision, it has to submit the dispute to the judgment of a Committee of Arbitrators, but this time, owing to the parties being deemed to have handed their case over to the Council, the organisation of the arbitration procedure is taken entirely out of their hands. It will be for the Council to settle all the details, the composition, the powers and the procedure of the Committee of Arbitrators. The Council is of course at liberty to hear the parties and even to invite suggestions from them, but it is under no obligation to do so. The only regulation with which it must comply is that, in the choice of arbitrators, it must bear in mind the guarantees of competence and impartiality which, by their nationality, their personal character and their experience, these arbitrators must always furnish.

Article 4. paragraph 6.

Effect of, and Sanction enforcing, Decisions.—Failing a friendly arrangement, we are, thanks to the system adopted, in all cases certain of arriving at a final solution of a dispute, whether in the form of a decree of the Permanent Court of International Justice or in the form of an arbitral award or, lastly, in the form of a unanimous decision of the Council.

To this solution the parties are compelled to submit. They must put it into execution or comply with it in good faith.

If they do not do so, they are breaking an engagement entered into towards the other signatories of the Protocol, and this breach involves consequences and sanctions according to the degree of gravity of the case.

If the recalcitrant party confines itself to offering passive resistance to the solution arrived at, it will first be the object of pacific pressure from the Council, which must exercise all its influence to persuade it to respect its engagements. If the Council is unsuccessful, it must propose measures calculated to ensure effect being given to the decision.