On this point the Protocol has been guided solely by the regulation contained at the end of Article 13 of the Covenant. The Council may thus institute against the recalcitrant party collective sanctions of an economic and financial order. It is to be supposed that such sanctions will prove sufficient. It has not appeared possible to go further and to employ force against a State which is not itself resorting to force. The party in favour of which the decision has been given might, however, employ force against the recalcitrant party if authorised to do so by the Council.
But if the State against which the decision has been given takes up arms in resistance thereto, thereby becoming an aggressor against the combined signatories, it deserves even the severe sanctions provided in Article 16 of the Covenant, interpreted in the manner indicated in the present Protocol.
Sphere of Application of Methods of Pacific Procedure.—Necessary as the system which we have laid down is for the purpose of ensuring settlement of all disputes, in applying it, the pacific aim which underlies it must be the only guide. It must not be diverted to other purposes and used as an occasion for chicanery and tendencious proceedings by which the cause of peace would lose rather than gain.
A few exceptions to the rule have also had to be made in order to preserve the elasticity of the system. These are cases in which the claimant must be nonsuited, the claim being one which has to be rejected in limine by the Council, the Permanent Court of International Justice or the arbitrators, as the case may be.
The disputes to which the system will not apply are of three kinds:
Article 4, paragraph 5.
1. The first concerns disputes relating to questions which, at some time prior to the entry into force of the Protocol have been the subject of a unanimous recommendation by the Council accepted by one of the parties concerned. It is essential to international order and to the prestige of the Council that its unanimous recommendations, which confer a right upon the State accepting them, shall not be called into question again by means of a procedure based upon compulsory arbitration. Failing a friendly arrangement, the only way which lies open for the settlement of disputes to which these recommendations may give rise is recourse to the Council in accordance with the procedure at present laid down in the Covenant.
Article 4, paragraph 7.
2. The same applies to disputes which arise as the result of measures of war taken by one or more signatory States in agreement with the Council or the Assembly of the League of Nations. It would certainly not be admissible that compulsory arbitration should become a weapon in the hands of an enemy to the community to be used against the freedom of action of those who, in the general interest, seek to impose upon that enemy respect for his engagements.
In order to avoid all difficulty of interpretation, these first two classes of exceptions have been formally stated in the Protocol.