Some Aspects of the Jurisdiction of the Permanent Court of International Justice

The problem of jurisdiction is of even greater importance in international law than it is in the domain of municipal law. This may easily be understood because, up to the present, no international tribunal has been furnished with obligatory jurisdiction binding upon all States. In consequence, the judicial settlement of many international disputes depends upon the preliminary question whether any tribunal has jurisdiction over the case. Although since the foundation of the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague a tribunal invested with a very comprehensive jurisdiction exists, it is, nevertheless, significant that in many cases before the Permanent Court a plea to the jurisdiction has been raised with the obvious intention of preventing a legal decision on the merits.