World Court

World Court popular name of the Permanent Court of International Justice, established pursuant to Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. The protocol establishing it was adopted by the Assembly of the League in 1920 and ratified by the requisite number of states in 1921. By the time of its dissolution in 1945 (when its functions were transferred to the newly created International Court of Justice ), the court had 59 member states. Established at The Hague, the court was empowered to render judgments in disputes between states that were voluntarily submitted to it and to give advisory opinions in any matters referred to it by the Council or the Assembly of the League. Its functions, thus, were judicial rather than, as in the case of the older Hague Tribunal , purely arbitral and diplomatic. It also differed from the Hague Tribunal in having a permanent group of judges instead of a panel from which judges might be selected to hear a particular dispute. The court originally had 11 judges and 4 deputy judges, but in 1931 its composition was changed to 15 regular judges. Judges were elected for nine-year terms by the Council and the Assembly concurrently; they were selected from a list of nominees of the Hague Tribunal regardless of nationality, except that not more than one citizen of a country might sit on the bench at any one time. Although the United States never joined the court (because the Senate refused to ratify the protocol), there was always an American jurist on the bench. To assure impartiality, the judges were paid salaries and were forbidden to engage in governmental service or in any legal activity except their judicial work. In the course of its existence, the court rendered 32 judgments and 27 advisory opinions. An important judgment was that which affirmed (1933) Danish sovereignty over the northern coast of Greenland and disallowed Norway's claim. The advisory opinions of the court were important in developing international law. A notable opinion declared (1931) that the proposed customs union of Germany and Austria would violate Austria's pledge to remain independent. The court virtually ceased to function after the German occupation of the Netherlands in 1940.

Bibliography: See M. O. Hudson, The Permanent Court of International Justice, 1920-1942 (rev. ed. 1943, repr. 1972); D. F. Fleming, The United States and the World Court (1945, repr. 1968).

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