International arbitration

“ No self-respecting power would, of course, consent to submit to arbitration a question of life or death. This would be as if two men were to agree to draw lots as to which should commit suicide in order to avoid fighting a duel. On the other hand, if the exception be taken to exclude all questions which, when decided adversely to a state, impose a restraint on its freedom of action, then the exception would seem to exclude such a question as the true interpretation of an ambiguous treaty, a subject with which experience shows international arbitration is well fitted to deal. ”

“ General Homer Lea answers the question once for all in the following expressive terms:
"Only when arbitration is able to unravel the tangled skein of crime and hypocrisy among individuals can it be extended to communities and nations. Thence will International Arbitration come of its own accord as the natural outgrowth of national evolution through the individual. As nations are only man in the aggregate, they are the aggregate of his crimes and deception and depravity, and so long as these constitute the basis of individual impulse, so long will they control the acts of nations. ”

“ In this century not less than eighty controversies between civilized Powers have been composed by arbitration. And more than that. Every international dispute settled by arbitration has stayed settled, while during the same period some of the results of great wars have not stayed settled, and others are unceasingly drawn in question, being subject to the shifting preponderance of power. And such wars have cost rivers of blood, countless treasure and immeasurable misery, while arbitration has cost comparatively nothing. ”

“ What is it that an arbitration treaty contemplates? That in all cases of dispute between this and a certain other country there shall be an impartial tribunal regularly appointed to decide upon principles of international law, of equity, of reason, what this and what the other country may be justly entitled to. And this arrangement is to be shunned as hampering our freedom of action!
What will you think of a man who tells you that he feels himself intolerably hampered in his freedom of action by the ten commandments or by the criminal code? ”

“ Therefore, I doubt not that the patriotic citizens assembled here to promote the establishment of a permanent system of international arbitration may be confident of having the warm sympathy of the American people behind them when they knock at the door of the President of the United States, and say to him: “In the name of all good Americans we commend this cause to your care. If carried to a successful issue it will hold up this Republic to its noblest ideals. ”

“ The belief that all wars may be averted by arbitration is equally a static conception. During the last few decades international arbitration has settled many controversies, which could not be adjusted by ordinary diplomatic means. Increasingly cases have been submitted to arbitral decision. {226} The real questions over which nations clash, however, are not arbitrable. One cannot arbitrate whether Russia or Germany should control the Balkans, whether the United States should admit Japanese immigrants, or whether Alsace should go to France or Germany, or Trieste to Italy or Austria. ”

“ In order that international arbitration may do its perfect work, it is not enough to set up a standing tribunal, whether at the Hague or elsewhere, and to equip it with elaborate rules of procedure. Tribunals and rules are, after all, only machinery. If this machinery is to act smoothly we must improve our motive power, the source of which is human passion and sentiment. ”

“ The distinct and prompt refusal by the American Commissioners to submit questions at issue between them and their Spanish colleagues to arbitration marks a limit to the application of that principle in international controversy which even its friends will be apt hereafter to welcome. No civilized nation is more thoroughly committed to the policy of international arbitration than the United States. ”

“ We cannot refuse to do so; we cannot set up for ourselves rules and theories adverse to the representations advanced by our own agents at Geneva in support of the private claims upon which the award was made, and adverse to the theory upon which the arbitrators made their decision — we cannot do that I say without striking a fatal blow at the beneficent results of the system of international arbitration so auspiciously inaugurated. ”

“ Arbitration answers very well providing that the arbiters are just and impartial and prove themselves able to arrive at a decision in perfect justice and equity. But America in the twentieth century, on account of her enormous expansion and world-wide commerce, had excited the jealousy as well as cupidity of every other civilized nation, with the one exception of Great Britain. In any court of international arbitration in which America might appear either as a plaintiff or as a defendant, the chances were largely in favor of a decision being rendered against her. ”

“ International arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many burning questions for a smouldering one; for disputes that have reached a really acute stage are not submitted. The animosities that it has kindled have been hotter than those it has quenched. ”

“ Many years ago the Marquis of Salisbury, in a very able note, pointed out the extreme difficulty which lies in the way of international arbitration, arising from the difficulty of securing arbitrators who will act impartially, the trouble being that the world has not yet passed, in general, out of that stage of development in which [Pg 143] men, even if they be arbitrators, act diplomatically instead of acting judicially. ”

“ If only we succeeded in the clear enunciation of legal rules for all international relations; if only we could succeed in finding independent and unbiased men to whose judgment a state could confidently submit its cause; if only we could succeed in bringing such men together in an independent international court—there would then be no reason why the great majority of states should not follow the example of the very small minority which has already agreed to settle all possible disputes by means of arbitration. ”

“ Such an imposing concourse of nations presenting their arguments to and invoking the decision of that high court of international justice and international peace can hardly fail to secure a like submission of many future controversies. The nations now appearing there will find it far easier to appear there a second time, while no nation can imagine its just pride will be lessened by following the example now presented. This triumph of the principle of international arbitration is a subject of warm congratulation and offers a happy augury for the peace of the world. ”

“ It is just among the old champions of the arbitral decision of international disputes that the most violent opposition is raised to the erection of a real court of justice for international law causes. In such a court they see a great danger for the future. The fact that arbitration has a tendency to furnish rather a decision which is as far as possible satisfactory to both parties than one which is based on naked law, is just the respect which, in the eyes of many, gives it a higher value than a real court possesses. Not jural but peaceable settlement of disputes is the motto of these men ”

“ Arbitrations are too apt, therefore, to lead to diplomatic compromises rather than to judicial decisions. The remedy is not in abandoning the principle of arbitration, but it is by pressing on in every country and among all countries the quickened conscience, the higher standard, the judicial idea, the sense of the responsibility for impartial judgment in international affairs, as distinguished from the opportunity for negotiation in international affairs. ”

“ Wherever possible, arbitration or some similar method should be employed in lieu of war to settle difficulties between civilized nations, although as yet the world has not progressed sufficiently to render it possible, or necessarily desirable, to invoke arbitration in every case. The formation of the international tribunal which sits at The Hague is an event of good omen from which great consequences for the welfare of all mankind may flow. It is far better, where possible, to invoke such a permanent tribunal than to create special arbitrators for a given purpose. ”

“ The world never offered grander opportunity to the nations for leadership—not for leadership in military splendor, but for leadership in the sublime paths of peace. For the United States this call means not only opportunity but even obligation. Already this country has performed well her duty in fostering international arbitration. She has been a party to half of the cases where disputes between nations have been referred to the Hague Tribunal. Arbitration is performing its mission with more and more efficiency, yet each year the war budgets of the nations are increasing. ”

“ The refusal prevents such degradation of a noble reform to an ignoble end as would make arbitration the refuge, not of those who wish to avoid war, but only of those who have preferred war and been beaten at it. The American precedent should thus become a powerful influence for promoting the cause of genuine international arbitration, and so for the preservation of peace between nations. ”

“ If nations can agree in solemn provisions of International Law to establish War as Arbiter of Justice, they can also agree to abolish this arbitrament, and to establish peaceful substitutes,—precisely as similar substitutes are established by Municipal Law to determine controversies among individuals. A system of Arbitration may be instituted, or a Congress of Nations, charged with the high duty of organizing an Ultimate Tribunal, instead of "these battles." ”

“ The arbitration rules of procedure of the relevant arbitration institution are applicable, and the arbitration rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law recommended by the United Nations, or other international arbitration rules, may also be used where acceptable to the parties to the dispute and to the arbitration institution.
3. Each Contracting Party shall seek to ensure that arbitration awards are recognized and enforced by their competent authorities where enforcement is sought, in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. ”

“ In this respect international arbitration differs from civil arbitration, since a private arbitrator cannot delegate his office without express authority. The analogy between the two fails to hold good in another respect also. In civil arbitration, the decision or award may be made a rule of court, after which it becomes enforceable by writ of execution against person or property. An international award cannot be enforced directly ”

“ In that same museum at Lucerne, where the exhibits of deadly weapons are educating thousands of tourists from all the nations of earth as they come and go, year by year, other exhibits show the increase of international arbitration as a means of determining differences. Within the last ten years eighty of these arbitration treaties have been signed, our own country being a party to more than a third of them all. There is a growing and an insistent demand in all the enlightened nations of the earth for an international judiciary. ”

“ When this obligation is not performed a claim will inevitably be made to which the existence of merely domestic legislation does not constitute a defense and, if the claim seems to be well founded and other methods of settlement have not been availed of, the usual recourse is arbitration in which international rules of action and obligations would be the subject of consideration. ”

“ Arbitration has the limitations of judicial processes. It is possible to arbitrate questions concerning the interpretation of treaties and formal agreements or the application of recognised principles of international law, but no nation will arbitrate its right to exist. ”

“ We know that war will obey no law other than that of necessity, and, consequently, that the settling of national differences at an international court of conciliatory arbitration is not workable. We know that no nation will abide by the dictates of any such court when those dictates are opposed to its interests, unless that court has the power to enforce its decrees. ”

“ Key, while conceding the essential value of international arbitration to be dependent upon the certainty and finality of the decision, the court adjudged that this government need not therefore close its doors against an investigation into the question whether its influence had been lent in favor of a fraudulent claim. ”

“ Thus history teaches the indisputable lesson that arbitration is not only the most humane and economical method of setting international differences, but also the most, if not the only, certain method to furnish enduring results. ”

“ Although the League of Nations has been brought into existence, yet it is incapable of establishing Universal Peace. But the Supreme Tribunal which His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh has described will fulfill this sacred task with the utmost might and power.
International Arbitration Bahá’u’lláh also advocated the establishment of an international court of arbitration, so that differences arising between nations might be settled in accordance with justice and reason, instead of by appeal to the ordeal of battle. ”