The International Bureau receives all the documents and stipulations in disputed cases, where arbitration is agreed upon and referred to The Hague, acting as a board of registry. It places its staff at the disposal of tribunals of arbitration, and occasionally of those not constituted at The Hague, and its expenses are paid by the Powers.
The Court of Arbitration proper is really an "eligible list" of individuals, "of recognized competence in questions of international law, enjoying the highest moral reputation," designated by the forty-four Powers signatory to the convention. Their terms are six years, renewable, not over four members appointed by a Power. Their jurisdiction extends over all cases submitted to them, but sometimes the parties agree to a special tribunal not selected from the list. Two names may be selected from the list of arbitrators by each of the Powers in dispute, and the amended convention of 1907 provides that only one of these can be its envoy or chosen from its nominees to the Court of Arbitration. The four arbitrators thus selected themselves choose a fifth as umpire, or, if the votes of the four are equally divided, the choice of umpire is intrusted to a third Power to be agreed upon. If there is failure to agree upon a third Power, each party to the controversy makes a separate choice of a Power, and the two thus selected will try to appoint the umpire. But if they, in turn, fail to agree, each shall within two months' time present two candidates from the general list, excluding those selected by the disputants or of their nations; by lot among these, the umpire is finally elected.
The work of the Third Conference, besides adding to the statute law of war, will largely concern the regulations governing the Court of Arbitration. Since it was constituted in April, 1901, this court has passed judgment in fourteen important cases without having established needed rules of practice. It is not decided whether the cases and counter-cases shall be presented with argument, or merely with statements of the facts, the conclusions sought, and the proofs. The practice is both ways. The thirty-five articles relating to "arbitral procedure" fail to prescribe rules, leaving this task to the tribunal in each case. As a result the terms of procedure in the Casablanca dispute, for instance, which were decided hastily to avert a threatened war, were brief and vague, and they left the discretion of the tribunal uncontrolled. The order of oral debate is not determined chiefly because a disputant is touchy about being classed as plaintiff or defendant. Clear rulings on points of practice are not made when presented, although the agents and counsel are entitled by the rules to "present orally to the tribunal all the arguments they may consider expedient in defense of their case." Yet opportunity to argue a motion is sometimes not afforded when the motion is made, and an argument presented later would be out of place. It would aid procedure to have arguments presented and rulings made as the points come up. Finally, the informal discussions between court and counsel frequently hinder the straightforward presentation of a case.