INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 September 1920, Page 8

INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE.

LEAGUE OP NATIONS' SCHEME. CONSTITUTION OP THE COURT. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright London, Sept. 14. A draft scheme for the institution of a permanent Court of International Jus- ' tice has been published by the League of i Nations. The scheme consists of 66 j articles prepared by an international committee of jurists. It was submitted to the Council of the League at San Sebastian, and the council decided to ask M. Bourgeois to prepare a report for submission to the session of the Council at Brussels in October. The Council will then make a definite decision, which will be submitted to the first meeting of the Assembly at Geneva in NovemberJurists on the Council of the League emphasise that all the members of the committee signed the report. The Council strongly urges ratification, declaring that failure to do this would be an irreparable international misfortune. The scheme provides that the judges of the court shall be elected by the Assembly of the League independently from a list of candidates which will be prepared from the 44 national groups'of the permanent Court of Arbitration instituted at Hague by the Conventions of 1899 and 1907, each group nominating two candidates. The court will be composed of 15 members, who will be elected for nine years. A concession is, however, made to national susceptibilities by an article giving each party to a dispute the right to have among the judges dealing with the case one judge of his own nationality. The court must hold a session each year, and the president is empowered to call extraordinary sessions, if required. On the delicate question of the competence of the court the project that, when a dispute has arisen between States and has been found impossible to settle by diplomatic means, and no agreement has been made to choose another jurisdiction, a party complaining may bring the case before the court. Hague is proposed as the seat of the court.—Renter.