332 A Positive Century (1815–1914)Th e fi rst of the initiatives at the Second Hague Conference was for the
creation of an international prize court, which would hear appeals from
prize courts of belligerent states. One of the most contentious issues was
how the judges were to be selected. Aft er some considerable discussion, it
was agreed that there were to be fi ft een judges, serving six- year terms. Eight
of these were to be appointed by the eight major powers, with the other
seven being selected according to a rota that was annexed to the convention.
A state that was party to a dispute was guaranteed a right to have a judge of
its choosing on the bench, by way of substitution for one of the judges on the
rota. Th e justifi cation for the privileged position of the eight major powers
was that, as the world’s chief maritime states, they would be expected to be
involved in by far the majority of cases.
Th irty- three states signed the Prize Court Convention. But substantial
opposition soon emerged. A principal legal foe of the court in the interna-
tional legal community was T. E. Holland, the professor of international law
at Oxford University. He objected to the authority that the court would have,
in cases where a specifi c rule of law was lacking, to decide the matter on the
basis of “general principles of law and equity.” Holland feared that this provi-
sion would enable the court to impose new, and unacceptable, restrictions on
British naval practices. In the event, the opposition prevailed. Th e British
parliament barred ratifi cation of this convention (along with the Declara-
tion of London). So the proposed court was stillborn.
Th e other project at the Second Hague Peace Conference fared even less
well. Th is was for the establishment of what was to be called the Court of
Arbitral Justice, which would diff er from the P.C.A. in two important ways.
First, it would be designed specifi cally for the determination of disputes by
application of international law. Second, it would have a permanent and
continuing bench of judges, in the manner of national courts. Th e parties to
a case would therefore have no right to determine the members of the
bench— apart from a guarantee that the litigating parties would always have
a right to appoint a judge. It was not envisaged that the court would have
compulsory jurisdiction. It could hear only cases that parties to a dispute
chose to submit to it.
Th e major— and ultimately insurmountable— problem was an inability of
the states to agree on the selection of the judges. Some delegations con-
tended that each party to the convention should have the right to appoint a