§ VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOODasked what Members of the League have signed the Optional Clause, which of them have ratified their signatures, and what reservations they have made to signature or ratification?
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYThe following is the latest available information:—
Ratifications
Abyssinia.—Reciprocity, five years, excepting disputes in respect to which the parties have agreed to have recourse to another method of pacific settlement.
Austria.—Reciprocity, ten years.
Belgium.—Reciprocity, fifteen years, in any disputes arising after ratification of the present Declaration with regard to situations or facts subsequent to this ratification, except cases where the parties have agreed or shall agree to have recourse to another method of pacific settlement.
Brazil.—Reciprocity, five years, and as soon as it has been recognised as such by two at least of the Powers permanently represented on the Council of the League of Nations.
Bulgaria.—Reciprocity.
Denmark.—Reciprocity, ten years.
Estonia.—Reciprocity, ten years, in any future dispute in respect of which the parties have not agreed to have recourse to another method of pacific settlement.
Finland.—Reciprocity, ten years.
Germany.—Reciprocity, five years, in any disputes arising after the ratification 726WA of the present Declaration with regard to situations or facts subsequent to this ratification, except in cases where the parties have agreed or shall agree to have recourse to another method of pacific settlement.
Haiti.—Unconditional.
Norway.—Reciprocity, ten years.
Netherlands.—Reciprocity, ten years, and in future disputes, excepting those in regard to which the parties would have agreed after the coming into force of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice to have recourse to another method of pacific settlement.
Portugal.—Reciprocity.
Spain.—Reciprocity, ten years, in any disputes arising after the signature of the present Declaration with regard to situations or facts subsequent to this signature, except in cases where the Parties have agreed or shall agree to have recourse to another method of pacific settlement.
Sweden.—Reciprocity, ten years.
Switzerland.—Reciprocity, ten years.
Uruguay.—Reciprocity.
Signatures not yet perfected by ratification
Costa Rica.—Reciprocity.
Dominican Republic.—Reciprocity.
France.—Reciprocity, fifteen years, with power of denunciation, should the Protocol of Arbitration, Security and the Reduction of Armaments, signed this day, lapse; and further, subject to the observations made at the First Committee of the Fifth Assembly, according to the terms of which "one of the Parties to the dispute may bring the said dispute before the Council of the League of Nations for the purposes of the pacific settlement laid clown in paragraph 3 of Article 15 of the Covenant, and during such proceedings neither Party may take proceedings against the other in the Court."
Guatemala.—Reciprocity.
Hungary.—Reciprocity, five years, to be reckoned as from the deposit of the instrument of ratification.
Latvia.—Reciprocity, five years, in any future dispute in respect of which the parties have not agreed to have recourse to another method of pacific settlement.
727WALiberia.—Reciprocity.
Luxemburg.—Reciprocity, five years.
Panama.—Reciprocity.
Salvador.—Reciprocity.