Permanent Court of International Justice. The creation of the Permanent Court of International Justice (World Court) after
World War I stemmed from earlier efforts of lawyers, peace advocates, and reform‐minded citizens to promote peaceful alternatives to international violence by widening the practice of international arbitration. While welcoming the creation of a Permanent Court of Arbitration by the First Hague Peace Conference (1899), these individuals had also pointed out that because the Hague Court allowed the litigating states to select their own arbiters, it was hardly “permanent” or a “court.” To limit political influence in arbitrations, they advocated the creation of a new world court composed of renowned jurists. The Second Hague Peace Conference (1907) adopted a convention establishing a new court of arbitral justice but could not agree on a procedure for appointing the judges.
The cataclysm of World War I convinced many internationalists that more imaginative approaches to world order were needed. A new movement for broader and more authoritative international institutions resulted in the creation of the
League of Nations. Interest in a world court to handle legal issues nonetheless persisted. Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations authorized the League Council to formulate plans for a Permanent Court of International Justice, and Article 13 defined the “justiciable” questions that could be brought before it. The U.S. Senate rejected membership in the league, but Elihu Root (1845–1937), the most prominent American promoter of a world court, served on the Advisory Committee of Jurists (1920) that designed the details for the new court at The Hague and devised an acceptable formula for the selection of the fifteen jurists.
In seeking U.S. adherence to the World Court, the administration of President Warren G.
Harding supported five reservations, which minimized the court's connections to the League of Nations; stated that the United States would not be bound without its consent by the court's advisory opinions; and, to satisfy the Senate's concern over its prerogatives, required that body's consent to a separate treaty specifying the issues in each dispute before cases could come before it. In January 1926 the Senate approved, 76–17, U.S. adherence to the World Court with these reservations. After lengthy talks, the league reluctantly acquiesced in the U.S. position, but by that time Senate support had eroded. The Senate vote on the proposal in January 1935 fell seven votes short of the necessary two‐thirds majority. President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt endorsed U.S. adherence but was unwilling to champion it vigorously. The defeat of this modest internationalist proposal underscored the virulent
isolationism that permeated the nation in the interwar years.
Despite these setbacks, many citizens' groups and the two major political parties endorsed U.S. adherence to a world judiciary. Support for American membership, the proponents argued, would have allowed the United States to participate more actively in international affairs without potentially entangling political commitments.
See also
Internationalism;
International Law;
Peace Movements.]
Bibliography
Denna Frank Fleming , The United States and the World Court, 1920–1966, rev. ed. 1968.
Michla Pomerance , The United States and the World Court as a “Supreme Court of the Nations,” 1996.
David S. Patterson