d of fifteen, the number
suggested in the American plan. The Draft Convention for the
Establishment of the Court of Arbitral Justice, as it was agreed the
new court should be designated, was submitted to the Conference and its
adoption recommended to the signatory powers. This Draft contained
thirty-five articles and covered everything except the method of
appointing judges. This question was to be settled by diplomatic
negotiation, and it was agreed that the court should be established as
soon as a satisfactory agreement with regard to the choice of judges
could be reached. After the adjournment of the Conference the United
States continued its advocacy of the international court of justice
through the ordinary diplomatic channels. The proposal was made that
the method of selecting judges for the Prize Court be adopted for the
court of justice, that is, that each power should appoint a judge, that
the judges of the larger powers should always sit on the court while
the judges of the other powers should sit by a system of rotation for
limited periods. It was found, however, that many of the smaller
states were unwilling to accept this suggestion, and as difficulties
which we will mention presently prevented the establishment of the
Prize Court, the whole question of the court of justice was postponed.

Most of the conventions adopted by the second Hague Conference were
ratified by the United States without reservation. The fact, however,
that certain of these conventions were not ratified by all the powers
represented at the Conference, and that others were ratified with
important reservations, left the status of most of the conventions in
doubt, so that at the beginning of the World War there was great
confusion as to what rules were binding and what were not binding. The
Conference found it impossible to arrive at an agreement on many of the
most vital questions of maritime law. Under these circumstances the
powers were not willing to have the proposed International Prize Court
established without the previous codification of the body of law which
was to govern its decisions.

In order to supply this need the London Naval Conference was convened
in December, 1908, and issued a few months later the Declaration of
London. The London Naval Conference was attended by representatives of
the principal maritime powers including the United States, and the
Declaration which it issued was avowedly a codification of t