The Competence of the Mixed Arbitral Courts of the Treaty of Versailles

Regardless of what we may think of the Treaty of Versailles, we must admit that it contains indications of farsightedness and broad vision. Among these I include the Covenant of the League of Nations and the clauses relating to international rivers and international labor laws. But even apart from these groups of laws and regulations, the provisions of the treaty which aim to submit disputes arising out of an especially important part of the treaty to international arbitration constitute, from the point of view of international law and considered in an abstract way—that is, only with reference to their creation and their significance for the development of international law and international arbitration—a real accomplishment, the fulfilment of wishes expressed even before the war by such scholars as von Bar, Meurer, Wehberg and Ludwig Wertheimer. At the same time the creation of the arbitral courts in the sense of Part X, Section VI, confirms the fact that the tendency toward arbitral settlement of such disputes even as arise from treaties of peace, to which I already called attention before the war, has not been abandoned on account of the war. This was proved by the German treaties with the Eastern countries and is now again indicated by the Treaty of Versailles.