Permanent Court of International Justice - Jurisdiction

Jurisdiction

The Court's jurisdiction was largely optional, but there were some situations in which they had "compulsory jurisdiction", where states were required to refer cases to them. This came from three sources; the Optional Clause of the League of Nations, general international conventions and "special bipartite international treaties". The Optional Clause was a clause attached to the protocol establishing the court which required all signatories to refer certain classes of dispute to the court, with compulsory judgments resulting. There were approximately 30 international conventions which the Court had similar jurisdiction under, including the Treaty of Versailles, the Air Navigation Convention, the Treaty of St. Germain and all mandates signed by the League of Nations. It was also foreseen that there would be clauses inserted in bipartite international treaties which would allow the referral of disputes to the ECJ; this indeed occurred, with such provisions found in treaties between Czechoslovakia and Austria, and between Czechoslovakia and Poland.

Throughout its existence, the Court widened its jurisdiction as much as possible. Strictly speaking, the Court's jurisdiction was only for disputes between states, although despite this they regularly accepted disputes that were between a state and an individual if a second state brought the individual's case to the Court, arguing that in doing this the second state asserts its rights, and the cases therefore becomes one between 2 states. Despite the proviso that the Court was for disputes "which cannot be satisfactorily settled by diplomacy", the Court never required evidence that diplomatic discussions had been attempted before bringing the case. In the Loan Cases it asserted jurisdiction despite the fact that there was no alleged breach of international law, and it could not be shown that there was any international element to the claim. The Court justified this by saying that the Covenant of the League of Nations allowed them jurisdiction in cases over "the existence of any fact which, if established, would constitute a breach of international obligations", arguing that since the fact "may be of any kind" they have jurisdiction if the dispute is one of municipal law. It was long established that municipal law may be considered as a side point to a dispute over international law, but the Loan Cases discussed municipal law without the application of any international points.