View source for General Act for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes

{{Short description|1928 multilateral convention}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
The '''General Act for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes''' is a multilateral convention concluded in Geneva on September 26, 1928. It went into effect on August 16, 1929, and was registered in ''[[League of Nations Treaty Series]]'' on the same day.<ref>''League of Nations Treaty Series'', [https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/LON/Volume%2093/v93.pdf vol. 93], pp. 344-363.</ref> The treaty was ultimately ratified by 22 states. It was subsequently denounced by Spain.
==Terms of the act==
The act provided frameworks for resolving international disputes by means of either establishing a [[conciliation]] commission (articles 1–16), establishing an [[arbitration]] tribunal (art. 21–28), or deferring failed disputes to the [[Permanent Court of International Justice]] (art. 17–20), thus combining three different 'model  convention' proposals from the League's Commission of Arbitration and Security - set up by the League's Preparation Commission in 1927 - into one unified act.<ref name=Steiner>[[Zara Steiner|Steiner, Zara]], The Lights that Failed, European International History 1919-1933, Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 572-574</ref>
The General Act reflected divisions within the League over how to achieve the collective security envisioned by Articles 11 and 16 of the League of Nations Covenant, e.g. [[Fridtjof Nansen]] championed the use of compulsory arbitration, while the [[United Kingdom]] refused the idea of compulsory deferment of even a limited range of disputes to the Permanent Court.<ref name=Steiner/>
The result was a treaty which did not contain the automatic mechanisms of the failed [[Geneva Protocol (1924)|1924 Geneva Protocol]], and which was considered an unambitious substitute in comparison.<ref name=Steiner/>
[[Finland]] produced an additional suggestion that nations should provide financial assistance to attacked nations, while [[Weimar Republic|Germany]] suggested that nations pledge themselves to adopting any resolution by the League Council, that the Council considered would reduce the risk of war. The Finnish and German proposals - although supported unanimously in the League's Assembly - were not incorporated into the General Act but deferred for later consideration by the League Council.<ref name=Steiner/>
==Further developments==
Following the [[Second World War]], the United Nations sought to replace the 1928 document with a more up to date one. As a result, it was replaced in 1949 by a revised act drafted by the [[United Nations]] Organization<ref>[http://ar.unrol.org/files/volume-71-I-912-English.pdf Text of the 1949 revised act]</ref> and then by the Manila Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/mdpsid/mdpsid.html | title=Manila Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes }}</ref> It also served as the basis for the [[European Convention for the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes]], concluded in 1957.<ref>[http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/peace/docs/europeace.html Text of the European Convention for the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes]</ref>
==See also==
* [[Geneva Protocol (1924)]]
* [[Kellogg–Briand Pact]]
* [[American Treaty on Pacific Settlement]]
==Notes==
{{Reflist}}
==External links==
* [http://www.worldlii.org/int/other/LNTSer/1929/220.html Text of the 1928 Act]
* [https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/MTDSG/Volume%20II/LON/PARTII-29.en.pdf Table of accessions to the act]
* [https://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/1950/09/19500920%2010-17%20PM/Ch_II_1p.pdf Text of the revised 1949 Act]
* [http://www.ejil.org/pdfs/14/1/401.pdf Anne Peters, ''International Dispute Settlement: A Network of Cooperational Duties'']
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