The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1912-12-26
A Tribunal Without Judges.

! speaker at the closing session OF
the American Society for the Judicial
Settlement of International Disputes,
in this city, pointed out the chief OBJ
stacie which must be removed before
the world can expect any great prog
rcss toward the acceptance of compul-
sory arbitration. Thomas Raeburn
White, in making clear the distinction
between the International Court of Ar
bitration at The Hague, which already
exists, and the International Court of
Arbitral Justice, recommended by the
last Peace Conference, but not yet
called into being, came very near
touching the root of the opposition
which has developed in our country to
the practical application Of judicial
methods for the settlements of inter
national disputes
1t is inevitable that there should
have been among the active opponents
of the arbitration treaties advocated by
President Taft those who deliberately
declined to contemplate the submission
of questions of national policy to any
outside tribunal for adjudication, and
who rejected any approach to COM
pulsory arbitration.
But there were sincere opponents of
the treaties which failed of confrma
ton by the Senate, as there are to-
day sincere men who doubt the eX-
pediency of submitting the canal tolls
question to an international tribunal,
who based their opposition on higher
grounds. and Mr. White has indicated
one difficulty. The present Court at
The Hague is body of delegates rep
resenting two score or more of ma
tions from which an arbitration tri-
bunal may be chosen, with the probable
ity that any issue submitted to such a
tribunal would finally be decided by
one man, the umpire between the hon.
est partisans of the respective litigants.
As Mr.. White expresses it:
Very few persons would be willing
10 submit an important difference with
another to the irrevocable decision of
one man, of whose identity they were
ignorant. 1t is no wonder that nations
still decline to submit all disputes
without reservation to arbitration.
doubt if any of US would agree to sub
NIT all of our private disputes to a
similarly constituted tribunal.
The obvious course would be to give
the proposed international tribunal that
permanency and its members that
standing which would insure for it the
respect and confidence of khe world
What is wanted, if the reign of law is
to be extended TO nations as it has
been to the relations between individ-
uals within the civilized nations, is a
judicial determination of disputes, not
a mere series of compromises dictated
by consideration of policy. Had there
been in existence a tribunal, the men,
bers of which included men like James
Bryce and Lord Alverstone, for Great
Britain, and for US the Chief Justic
of our Supreme Court and jurists of
like standing for integrity and impair
TALLY, much of the unwillingness to
submit all international disputes to ar
bitration would not have manifested
itself.
The second Peace Conference agreed
upon the principle of such a permanent
tribunal, but the failure to organize it
is, next to militarism, the greatest OBJ
stacle to the attainment of the judicial
settlement of international disputes.