Sanctions of International Commodity Agreements

Extract

Ever since Article 16, with its provisions for penalties against a violator,was inserted in the League of Nations Covenant, the term “sanctions” has been much to the fore in all discussions relating to international problems.The ranks of the internationally mindedhave been divided between those who favor the formal drafting and definite application of punitive measures against declared breakers of agreements and pacts, and those who inveigh against the feasibility of carrying over into the international arena the “policeman” ideas familiar to municipal or domestic law. The former school holds that only by adequate preparation in advance of swift and deadly sanctions can “bad-boy” nations be induced to keep the peace; while thelatter group believes that the present international society is notyet ripefor such community tactics, that it is virtually impossible to distinguish “good” boys from “bad” ones, and that the difficulties of treating a whole nation as a criminal are almost insuperable. The problem ceased to be an academic one at the time of the Sino-Japanese and Chaco crises, in each ofwhich the States of the world, both in the League and out, side-stepped the issue in one way or another, but during the Italo-Ethiopian affair, the matter became even more acute. It is not the purpose of this article to discuss the question of sanctions as it relates to the political entities comprising the euphemistically called “family of nations,” but it is proposed to examine the workings of agreements among economic or commercial bodies and to look into the ways in which those agreements are enforced or “sanctioned.”