The Permanent Court as composed after the first general election

The judges

As the Court Protocol had entered into force at the time of the opening of the Second Assembly in September 1921, the first general election of judges took place on 14 September 1921. The judges were to be elected under Article 2 of the Statute ‘amongst persons of high moral character, who possess the qualifications required in their respective countries for appointment to the highest judicial offices, or are jurisconsults of recognized competence in international law’. According to Article 9, ‘the whole body … should represent the main forms of civilization and the principal legal systems of the world’. In the Assembly, just before the election, Minéitcirô Adatci had said that this ‘extremely important article … emphasises the universal character of the institution, for as the various States accept the clause enjoining mutual obligation, the Court of International Justice will become a complete world organisation’. The successful candidates were rather diverse in terms of their experience and had a range of ages.

A number of judges had made significant contributions to international legal theory. Max Huber (forty-seven years old in 1921) was a Swiss professor in international law from Zurich, who had spent the war as legal adviser to the Swiss Federal Council. Huber's doctoral thesis from 1898 on state succession had been much referred to, and in 1910 he had published a mature piece on the foundation, past and possible future of international law: Beiträge zur Kenntnis der soziologischen Grundlagen des Völkerrechts und der Staatengesellschaft.