The Geneva Protocol

by David Hunter Miller

It will of course in this connection be necessary to consider the obligations fixed by the Protocol in the event of its breach, as well as those which are imposed by its acceptance and performance. These latter may, however, very properly be first considered.

Accordingly, the first discussion will relate to the obligations of the States which become parties to the Protocol as among themselves, particularly in connection with the due performance of these obligations by those parties.

Before coming to this first discussion, however, there are certain general observations which may be made.

In the first place the paper is called a Protocol. The precise reason for the use of this term does not appear; but it is probably due to the fact that the Protocol of Geneva is in a sense supplementary to other international agreements such as the Covenant of the League of Nations and the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice; and perhaps because the Protocol is intended to be preliminary to amendments to the Covenant (Article I, paragraph 1, of the Protocol).

Allusion is made to this provisional character of the Protocol of Geneva in the Report[[1]] made by the First and Third Committees to the Fifth Assembly of the League of Nations, where it is said:

"When the Covenant has been amended in this way some parts of the Protocol will lose their value as between the said States: some of them will have enriched the Covenant, while others, being temporary in character, will have lost their object.

The whole Protocol will remain applicable to relations between signatory States which are Members of the League of Nations and signatory States outside the League,[[2]] or between States coming within the latter category.

It should be added that, as the League realizes its aim of universality, the amended Covenant will take the place, as regards all States, of the separate régime of the Protocol."

Of course, as is pointed out in some detail by Satow (Diplomatic Practice, Second Edition, Vol. II, pages 270 et seq.), the word "protocol" is used with quite a number of different meanings. In the present case the meaning of the word is nothing more nor less than treaty or convention.

It is naturally impossible to consider or discuss the effect of the Protocol of Geneva without constant reference to the text of the Covenant, to which the Protocol refers throughout. It is also necessary to consider to some extent the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice and even certain of the provisions of the Treaties of Peace, other than the Covenant.