TO SETTLE DISPUTES,

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1813, 28 July 1913, Page 5

TO SETTLE DISPUTES,

PROPOSAL FOR AN INTERNATIONAL' COURT OF JUSTICE. Some time ago tho Inter-Parliamentary Union charged a Commission of seven jurisconsults taken from among the Parliaments of the 01d : and Nenv Worlds to elaborate a draft constitution for an International Court of Justice. Bio idea of the union is to add to the arbitral courts of justice and the International Prize Court a now organisation to settle conflicts arising out of privato international law.

The oommission recently met in Paris, and 11. Etienne Flandiu, senator, who was elected president, stated last month to a "Daily News" representative, that the report which tho Belgian senator, M. La Fontaine, is about to draw up will recommend the creation at Tho_ Haauo of a complete organisation of international justice. Tho nomination of the judges will be vested in The Hague, on the recommendation of the State. Tho candidates would have to be jurisconsults of proved competence in international law. The delicate question as to whether private individuals would be permitted to bring claims before tho International Court of Justice, or whether they could only bo represented by their respective Governments, has been solved by the decision of the commission to throw open tho courts to all, but it is dccided that a permanent delegation of the oourt, composed of delegates of the. different sections, should fulfil a role analogous to that of tho Chamber of Requests of the French Court of Cassation, and set aside, with 6everc pecuniary penalties, any demands not resting upon' serious justification. "If wo succeed," says M. Flandin, "in assuring the regular working of permanent international jurisdiction to decide all questions of private law between pleaders of different _ nationalities, and in creating a world jurisprudence, shall we not have gone a long way towards introducing tho realm of dreams into the world of living realities, and shall we not be justified in expressing hopes of a vaster 6Cope?" " 'Hake war impossible' was the programme which President Taft desired to lay before the leaders of The Hague Conference. Dark as the present appears, let us not despair of the future."