Status of the international court of justice; with an appendix of addresses and official documents.

Front matter

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Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Preface

“ As is well known, the American delegation to the Second Peace Conference was directed by Mr. Root, as Secretary of State, to present a proposal for an International Court of Justice. Germany and Great Britain approved the plan and a joint project of the three nations was laid before the Conference. France, although not technically a party, warmly supported the idea. A draft convention concerning the Court, which by this time was known as the Court of Arbitral Justice, was adopted by the Conference and its establishment recommended through diplomatic channels.

“ It seems to the officers of the American Society for Judicial Settlement of International Disputes that the time has come for a somewhat elaborate account of the present status of the proposal, so that the partisans of judicial settlement shall be informed not only as to the original proposition, but as to the steps which have been taken to realize it. Documents too long for quotation in the article have been included in an appendix, which will, it is hoped, be found a useful supplement to the statements contained in the text and place before the reader the material necessary for a correct understanding of the draft convention adopted by the Second Conference, and the process by which that fortunate result was reached.”

Such was the preface to the tractate published but a few weeks (to be accurate, in the month of July) before the outbreak of the great war in August 1914. The Honorable Elihu Root felt justified in saying in a letter to the undersigned that “ It is very clear and satisfactory and it came at just the right time, because on all these subjects we shall have to take a new departure after the war, and this paper is a summing up of the status of peaceable settlement

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PREFACE at the close of the period. It ought to be in permanent book form.” With the permission of the Judicial Settlement Society, of which the undersigned is Secretary, the original pamphlet now appears “ in permanent book form,” without a change of any kind, unless it be the correction of a typographical error.

James Brown Scott,

Director of the Division of International Law.

Washington, D. C.,

February 28, ipi6.

Contents

Page

The Status of the International Court of Justice i

State of opinion to-day 2