League, with the United States as defendant before the Council?

But, according to Article XXI, the Monroe Doctrine is not merely an "international engagement," it is a regional understanding." With whom is it an understanding? All the secret treaties, also, are "regional understandings" for securing the maintenance of peace between contestants over territories in which "spheres of influence have been in dispute. The Monroe Doctrine is nothing of this kind. It is what its text and history show it to be, the time-honored self-protective policy of the United States. The abandonment of that policy and the acceptance of Article X as a substitute for it, would mean that the United States had decided to renounce self-dependence, and to seek protection in the promises of a group of Powers of various degrees of culture and efficiency, scattered in every part of the earth, which the United States, as a guarantor, would be bound in honor not only to defend against the aggressions of one another but against powerful nations which are not members of the League and not bound by any of its provisions.

And now comes the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, wearing the trailing mantle of Mr. Wilson's apostolate of peace through the pledge of war, repeating as the key-note of his new rôle, "They charge experimentation when we have as historical precedent the Monroe Doctrine, which is the very essence of Article X of the Versailles Covenant."

What a cataclysm the Democratic Party has traversed in the transition from the Monroe Doctrine as understood by Cleveland to that doctrine as understood by Cox!

DAVID JAYNE HILL.

VOL. CCXII.-No. 780.

38

THE WORLD COURT MOVEMENT

BY CHANDLER P. ANDERSON

PUBLIC opinion among the enlightened nations of the world has demonstrated a preference for the regulation of international relations on the basis of law and justice rather than by force and war. It remains for these nations to determine how this preference shall be made effective. The need for some form of international organization is recognized, and the question which at present is awaiting decision is how far the executive, legislative and judicial functions of government shall enter into and be exercised by an international organization.

In the League Covenant of the Peace Treaty, the execu tive power has been so greatly magnified in importance that it has no well defined limitations, and even includes legisla tive and judicial powers over international relations and controversies. This exaltation of the executive power under the Covenant has been one of the chief causes of the opposition to it in the United States, because it is incompatible with American principles. It is a departure from the theory of government embodied in the Constitution of the United States, which separates the executive, legislative and judicial powers of government into distinct and coordinate branches, each of which is restricted to the exercise of certain limited powers specifically delegated to it. The theory underlying the League organization seems to have been that the best way to prevent war was to submit all international questions to the control of a political machine dominated by a few select nations. This feature of the League organization is also a departure from the fundamental principles controlling the form of international organization which had already received universal sanction through the Hague Conferences, and subsequent negotiations among nations for the creation of an independent international judiciary to settle international controversies by the application of prin

ciples of justice on the basis of the equal rights of all nations, great and small alike.

One of the questions at issue, therefore, would seem to be whether the world organization for peace shall rest on the one hand upon the administration of international law by an international court of justice, free from political control and commanding the confidence of public opinion throughout the world by upholding the equal rights of all nations under the law, or on the other hand upon the political domination of a few of the great nations over the rest of the world and over any court of international justice established as an adjunct to that organization.

The difference between an international court of justice. and the council created by the League Covenant, as pointed out by Senator Harding in his recent speech on our foreign relations, is that the former is "a judicial tribunal governed by fixed and definite principles of law administered without passion or prejudice," while the latter is "an association of diplomats and politicians whose determinations are sure to be influenced by considerations of expediency and national selfishness." Moreover, the eye of the League, unlike the eye of the law, does not regard the rights of a small nation as equal to the rights of a great Power.

The disadvantages and objectionable aspects of a politicians' league have been thoroughly exposed, in so far at least, as our own participation is concerned, but the fact that for many years past a great world movement has been steadily progressing for the establishment of an international court of justice, together with arbitration tribunals, as the dominating influence in a world organization for the preservation of peace has not received the attention it deserves.

Such an organization was given definite form by the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 and is still in existence. Those conferences were important milestones in the evolution of this organization, and although its development was temporarily interrupted by the lawlessness of the war, the organization has survived, and with the defeat of Germany the only serious obstacle to its progress has been removed. One of the great lessons of the war was that lawlessness cannot prevail against the united opposition of the forces of justice, and the best safeguard against lawlessness is to strengthen the authority of justice and right.

It is important to consider, therefore, what progress this movement has already made through and beyond The Hague Conferences, and what promise it holds for the future.

The Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, adopted at the First Hague Conference in 1899 and readopted with substantial improvements at the Second Conference in 1907, established a system, world wide in its application, for international arbitration, mediation, and the ascertainment and publication of facts by commissions of inquiry in international controversies.

In addition to these accomplishments the 1907 Conference adopted a draft "Convention for the establishment of a Court of Arbitral Justice" and recommended its ratification, which was postponed pending a supplementary agreement upon a satisfactory method for selecting the personnel of this court. There was, however, no disagreement among the nations at that time, and there has been none since, about the importance of establishing a real and permanent international court of justice, as then projected, in addition to the occasional arbitration tribunals provided for in The Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes.

The distinction between these tribunals of arbitration and a permanent court of justice is that such tribunals are not permanent nor impartial nor judicial, because they are formed separately under special agreements and with different arbitrators in each individual case, and these arbitrators are expected to act more as diplomats than as judges and do not constitute a permanent judicial body, and the final outcome is generally a political compromise rather than a decision between right and wrong. This distinction was pointed out in the instructions issued by Mr. Root, as Secretary of State, in 1907, to the American delegates at the Second Hague Conference, in which he said:

There can be no doubt that the principal objection to arbitration rests not upon the unwillingness of nations to submit their controversies to impartial arbitration, but upon an apprehension that the arbitrations to which they submit may not be impartial. It has been a very general practice for arbitrators to act, not as judges deciding questions of fact and law upon the record before them under a sense of judicial responsibility, but as negotiators effecting settlement of questions brought before them in accordance with the traditions and usages and subject to all the considerations and influences which affect diplomatic agents. The two methods are radically different, proceed upon different stand

ards of honorable obligation, and frequently lead to widely different results. It very frequently happens that a nation which would be very willing to submit its differences to an impartial judicial determination is unwilling to subject them to this kind of diplomatic process.

On the other hand nations might willingly submit to this diplomatic process of arbitration a political question, or a question of international policy, which did not properly come within the jurisdiction of a court of law. The different functions of the two systems, and the advantage of maintaining both, were pointed out by Mr. Leon Bourgeois, of the French Delegation at the Second Hague Conference, who said:

In controversies of a political nature, especially, we think that this will always be the real rule of arbitration and that no nation large or small will consent to go before a court of arbitration unless it takes an active part in the appointment of the members composing it.

But is the case the same in questions of purely legal nature? Can the same uneasiness and distrust appear here? And does not every one realize that a real court composed of real jurists may be considered as the most competent organ for deciding controversies of this character and for rendering decisions on pure questions of law?

In our opinion, therefore, either the old system of 1899 or the new system of a truly permanent court may be preferred according to the nature of the case.

In 1910 a draft convention was signed by delegates representing Great Britain, Germany, France and the United States, agreeing upon a plan for organizing this court and putting into force the proposed Hague Convention of 1907 for establishing the court as soon as ratified by 18 Powers. The requisite number of ratifications not having been secured, further negotiations were undertaken early in 1914 for the adoption of another draft convention for the establishment of this court, in a preliminary way, by and for Great Britain, the United States, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands and Russia. These negotiations were interrupted by the outbreak of the great war, which also prevented the meeting of a Third Hague Conference, arranged for the following year, when the organization of the permanent court undoubtedly would have been accomplished.

In spite of the disappointments and delays attending the negotiations for the establishment of this court, subsequent developments have shown that the proceedings hitherto taken have furnished a sure foundation to build upon