The Geneva Protocol

by David Hunter Miller

CHAPTER V.

RELATIONS INTER SE OF THE SIGNATORIES TO THE PROTOCOL.

It is here assumed that only Members of the League of Nations may become parties to the Protocol of Geneva[[1]]; the Protocol is a development of the Covenant and it would, in any view, be logically impossible for any State, not a Member of the League, to become a Signatory to the Protocol; on the other hand, Members of the League are, of course, not obligated to sign or to ratify the Protocol of Geneva.

Accordingly, if the Protocol shall come into force, the Powers of the world, from the point of view of the Protocol, will, at least theoretically, be divided into three classes:

1. Members of the League of Nations who are parties to the Protocol.

2. Members of the League of Nations who are not parties to the Protocol.

3. Non-Members of the League of Nations who are not parties to the Protocol.

From this it follows, again looking at the matter from the point of view of the Protocol of Geneva, that the international relations of the various countries of the world would fall into the following six classes: