International Law: The Old and the New

Extract

The Hague Conference of 1907 is over and the delegates return to their respective countries. Aspirations for the pacific settlement of international disputes have been voiced and a list of possible arbitrators has been drawn up described by the formal name of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Well and good! No obligation was accepted to have recourse to the Court, but at least the Conference went so far as to declare its acceptance of “the principle of compulsory arbitration” and its applicability to international agreements. At the same time the Conference declared that the divergencies of opinion in respect to compulsory arbitration “have not exceeded the bounds of judicial controversy,” and that the delegates, in the course of their long collaboration, had succeeded “in evolving a very lofty conception of the common welfare of humanity.”