362 Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (1914– )absolute pacifi sm, since it was clearly understood by the parties that armed
force could be used in self- defense. And it seemed likely, too, that force
could still be employed in collective security eff orts, since these would not
count as war in pursuit of “national policy.” Moreover, no form of sanction
was specifi ed in the treaty. Th e pact, therefore, may have seemed little more
than a high- profi le trumpeting of idealism. But it would later prove to have
some very important and unexpected eff ects.
In one area— suppression of crime— various initiatives were proposed
during this period but not ultimately adopted. Th e Advisory Committee of
Jurists, the body that draft ed the Statute of the World Court, favored the
establishment of an international criminal court alongside the P.C.I.J. Th e
idea was principally the initiative of the Belgian member of the committee,
Édouard Descamps. Th e criminal tribunal would have operated as a kind
of companion to the World Court, to place accused individuals (rather
than states) on trial. But the proposal was not acted on by the League
Council.
A more concrete arrangement for an international criminal court
emerged later, in the wake of the assassination of King Alexander I of
Yugo slavia during a visit to France in 1934. A convention was concluded in
1937 for the trial of alleged terrorists by an international tribunal. Th is
would be done entirely at the option of any state that had custody of an al-
leged terrorist. Th e state could elect to transfer the accused person to the
international court, where it would be responsible for conducting the pros-
ecution. Th e convention, however, did not attract enough ratifi cations to
enter into force.
Codifi cation
Th ere continued to be disagreement among international lawyers over the
codifi cation of international law (or parts of it). Even among those in favor,
there was disagreement as to how it should be done. A key question was
whether it was better to have states undertake the task, or alternatively to
entrust the task to technical experts (i.e., to international lawyers). At stake
in this debate was whether the question of codifi cation was better regarded
as a fundamentally po liti cal activity or as a technical exercise. A prominent
advocate of the technical approach was Schücking. Root was strongly of