The Article provided that the Council should formulate and submit to members of the League plans for the establishment of a permanent court of International Justice. Article 14 further laid down that the Court Of International Justice should be competent to hear and determine disputes of 2n International character which the parties in dispute had submitted to the Court and to give an advisory opinion on any matter referred to it by the Council or the Assembly of the League, It was this formula which contained the principle departure from the original plan. for, instead of giving a state the right to summon another state before the Court. the Article restricted the jurisdiction of the Court to those cases which were submitted by both parties.
The Court which sat for the first time in January 1922. consisted of 15 judges; their names were proposed by groups of state and their election took place by vote in the Assembly and in the Council of League of Nations, both the Assembly and the Council voting separately. The judges receive a fixed salary and a pension, are elected for a period of nine years and may not hold any position incompatible with their function.
They appoint from their midst a president and a vice-president. and their first president was the Netherlander Dr. Lhoder. He was succéeded in turn by the Swiss Hooger, the Italian \Andtilossie,; the. Japanese }iAealely the"Englishman Sir Cecil Hart and the Salvadorian Geralo, who was still president when war broke out.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.