The Election of Members of the Permanent Court of International Justice

Abstract

The progress made in international organization during the course of the last decade is nowhere better illustrated than in the elections of members of the Permanent Court of International Justice. A generation ago, when the Permanent Court of Arbitration was created, following the meeting of the first Peace Conference at The Hague in 1899, no attempt was made to depart from the equal representation of all participating States; and the Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes of that year provides (Article 23) that each State may name four members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Nor did it prove possible to depart from that system at the second Peace Conference at The Hague in 1907; in the projet for a permanent court of arbitral justice which was drawn up at that time, no provision could be made for the election of judges of such a tribunal, because agreement could not be reached. The International Prize Court, provided for in the Convention of October 18, 1907, which was never ratified, was to be composed of judges and deputy-judges appointed by each of the contracting Powers. It was to have fifteen judges sitting at any session; those of the eight “Great Powers” were to sit in all cases, and the judges and deputy-judges appointed by other Powers were to sit “by rota” ; but this provision was not accepted by at least ten of the signatories to the convention. Here was a recognition of the special position of the great Powers, and an attempted compromise with the principle of equal representation which failed. In the years following 1907, an effort to have the same system applied in the selection of judges of a permanent court of arbitral justice proved abortive. In the Central American Court of Justice, existing from 1908 to 1918, one judge was selected by each of the States maintaining the court. So that in our entire experience before 1914, there was no indication of any successful method by which the members of a permanent international tribunal might be selected, apart from the equal representation of all States concerned.