III. Pacific Settlement of Disputes

Abstract

A plan for the peaceful settlement of international disputes is the very heart of any charter establishing an international organization to maintain peace and security. Greater emphasis may be given and greater popular interest may attach, particularly in time of war, to provisions for the joint use of national economic and military forces in restraint of aggression. Yet it must be admitted that peace and security are most completely assured when the necessity for resort to collective force does not exist, and when nations, like individuals in a well-ordered society, settle their differences by peaceful means.Any full understanding of the provisions for the pacific settlement of disputes contained in the Charter of the United Nations would, of course, require an analysis of our total historical experience in the development of principles, procedures, and institutions for this purpose. In particular, an analysis of the League system and its actual operation, and of the reasons why it failed, would seem necessary. For whatever we do today must find its chief justification in the conviction that in our present endeavor we are profiting from the experience of the past and are creating a system which has a better chance of success than its predecessors. Space, however, does not permit the detailed analysis of our historical experience which is necessary to a satisfactory evaluation of the San Francisco achievement. The reader who wishes to explore this historical background more fully is referred to the extensive literature dealing generally with peaceful settlement of disputes, and more particularly with the League experience.