ions of law or of fact in case the
respective parties cannot agree concerning them. However, in most cases
the law is not in jeopardy, and its commands are carried out by those
concerned without any necessity for a Court to declare the law. Modern
International Law has been in existence for several hundred years, and
its commands have in most cases been complied with in the absence of
International Courts. On the other hand, there is no doubt that, if
controversies arise about a question of law or a question of fact, the
authority of the law can be successfully vindicated only by the verdict
of a Court. And it is for this reason that no highly developed Community
can exist for long without Courts of Justice.

II. The Community of civilised States did not, until the end of the
nineteenth century, possess any permanent institution which made the
administration of international justice possible. When States were in
conflict and, instead of having recourse to arms, resolved to have the
dispute peaceably settled by an award, in every case they agreed upon
so-called arbitration, and they nominated one or more arbitrators, whom
they asked to give a verdict. For this reason, it was an epoch-making
step forward when the First Peace Conference of 1899 agreed upon the
institution of a Permanent Court of Arbitration, and a code of rules for
the procedure before this Court. Although the term 'Permanent Court of
Arbitration,' as applied to the institution established by the First
Hague Peace Conference, is only a euphemism, since actually the Court
concerned is not a permanent one and the members of the Court have in
every case to be nominated by the parties, there is in existence,
firstly, a permanent panel of persons from which the arbitrators may be
selected; secondly, a permanent office at the Hague; and, thirdly, a
code of procedure before the Court. Thereby an institution has been
established which is always at hand in case the parties in conflict
want to make use of it; whereas in former times parties in conflict had
to negotiate a long time in order to set up the machinery for
arbitration. And the short time of twenty years has fully justified the
expectations aroused by the institution of the Permanent Court of
Arbitration, for a good number of cases have been brought before it and
settled to the satisfaction of the parties concerned.

And the Second Hague Peace Conference of 1907 contemplated further steps
by agreeing upon