No provisions of the Covenant have been more debated since it was written than those of Article 16. In 1921, various amendments to this Article of the Covenant were proposed, none of which has gone into force; and, as mentioned above, the Assembly then adopted various interpretative resolutions regarding Article 16 which, with the proposed amendments (one of which was textually modified in 1924), are provisionally in force.[[5]]
It is unnecessary to attempt any detailed consideration of the exact legal effect of Article 16 of the Covenant at the present time in view of these interpretative resolutions and proposed amendments; in general they are intended to make the system of the economic blockade more flexible in its application so far as may be consistent with the purpose of the first paragraph of Article 16 of the Covenant, namely, to institute a complete economic and financial boycott of an aggressor.
This first paragraph of Article 16 of the Covenant says also that the aggressor shall ipso facto be deemed to have committed an act of war against the other Members of the League; this provision does not create a state of war; it simply gives the other Members of the League the right to consider themselves at war with the aggressor if they see fit; this provision is supplemented by the language of Article 10 of the Protocol which gives to any signatory State called upon to apply sanctions the privilege of exercising the rights of a belligerent, if it chooses.
Paragraph 2 of Article 16 of the Covenant made it the duty of the Council to "recommend" to the various governments what armed forces they should severally contribute for use in protecting the covenants of the League.
Now what Article 11 of the Protocol does in its first paragraph is to say that the obligations of all States in regard to the sanctions mentioned in paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 16 of the Covenant will, when the call for the application of the sanctions is made by the Council, immediately become operative, in order that such sanctions may forthwith be employed against the aggressor.
So far as the first paragraph of Article 16 of the Covenant is concerned—the economic and financial blockade—I do not see that this first paragraph of Article 11 of the Protocol adds anything to that first paragraph of Article 16 of the Covenant, even when the former is read in connection with the second paragraph of Article 11 of the Protocol.
It is true that in the resolutions about the economic weapon in the Assembly of 1921, it was recognized that from practical points of view the application of the economic pressure cannot be made equally by all countries. But undoubtedly, subject to the practical difficulties mentioned, a definite obligation exists in Article 16 of the Covenant to impose economic sanctions against the aggressor, and, as I said, in my judgment this obligation is not changed by the Protocol; but it can now become an operative obligation only if and when the Council says so.
The vital question regarding sanctions under the Protocol arises under the second paragraph of Article 16 of the Covenant in connection with the first and second paragraphs of Article 11 of the Protocol. Indeed, it is because of this second paragraph of Article 11 of the Protocol that the question regarding the use of the British Fleet has been raised in England.
Article 16, paragraph 2 of the Covenant reads as follows: