330 A Positive Century (1815–1914)Despite this less than auspicious model, states became increasingly will-
ing, at least in principle, to submit their disputes to arbitration. In the fi nal
years of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth, there was
a mushrooming of bilateral arbitration treaties between states. By 1914, over
three hundred are estimated to have been concluded. Th e United States
alone entered into some twenty- two in the two- year period of 1908– 9. It is
small wonder, then, that Westlake could confi dently assure his readers that
“international arbitration is in the air.”
It must be appreciated, though, that the air was somewhat less than pure
because these treaties typically contained important caveats. In par tic u lar,
three subject areas were widely excluded from the scope of the duty to arbi-
trate: questions relating to the in de pen dence of the states, issues aff ecting
“vital interests” or honor (potentially quite a broad category of matters), and
matters in which third parties had interests. Moreover, it was commonly
stated in arbitration treaties that the key decision of whether a given matter
fell into one of those excluded matters was a question for each state to deter-
mine on its own.
In the light of these restrictions, it is not so surprising that the actual pace
of arbitrations did not pick up as sharply as the number of agreements
might have indicated. Nevertheless, it has been estimated that, in the period
1794– 1900, some 177 arbitrations took place, with just over half of these
concentrated in the period 1880– 1900. If nothing else, these deliberations
greatly enhanced the employment prospects of international lawyers, both
as arbitrators and as counsel for the disputing parties. It has been ob-
served that the ser vices of Martens and Renault were in especially high
demand.
Th e Permanent Court of Arbitration
One of the major achievements of the First Hague Peace Conference was the
conclusion of the Convention on the Pacifi c Settlement of Disputes, largely
draft ed by Martens. Th is convention’s primary achievement was to pro-
vide for what is sometimes called the world’s fi rst international court, enti-
tled the Permanent Court of Arbitration (P.C.A.). Th e label “permanent”
seems appropriate, as the institution continues to exist to the present day.
Th e word “court” was less happily chosen, for two reasons. One is that the