SANCTIONS AND GUARANTEES in international law correspond to the means adopted in national law to enforce legal decisions. During the years which followed the World War it became increasingly apparent that the most important and the most enduring of European political problems was that known as the problem of "security" (q.v.).
As a deduction from the new conception of security the word "sanctions" began to replace in the language of diplomacy the word "alliance." Security was now to be sought not in limited agreements between small groups of states to fight together when ever any of them should, for whatever cause, be involved in international conflict, but in common agreements among a greater or smaller number of states to act together when—and only when—the established rights of one of them had been violated by force. Security, therefore, must be found in "sanctions" against the wrongdoer. For some time indeed, the word "guar antees" was used instead of, or on an equal footing with, the word "sanctions," but gradually the use of the word "guarantee" dis appeared and the word "sanctions" took its place.
The discussions which occurred after the war soon showed that there were two ways by which Governments believed the result in view could be achieved; first, by creating a general system em bracing all the States throughout the world; and second, by creating limited arrangements applying to a certain number of States situated in geographical proximity to each other and bound together by common bonds of material interest.
Article 16 of the Covenant.—It was by the general method that the first step was made towards the organization of a true system of international sanctions. This first step consisted in the adoption of the Covenant of the League of Nations, Article 16 of which imposes obligations upon every member of the League to adopt common coercive measures, including especially a finan cial and economic boycott, against states which, in violation of the undertakings of the Covenant, resort to war. But unfortunately Article 16 contained ambiguities which seriously diminished the confidence of Governments in its efficiency. It was not, therefore,
generally regarded as by itself creating a sufficiently sound system of sanctions to solve the problem of security. For that reason the Temporary Mixed Commission set up by the Council of the League of Nations prepared in 1923 the draft treaty of mutual guarantee (or assistance), on the basis of which was prepared the Geneva Protocol of 1924. Both instruments were founded on the clear acceptance by all signatory states of obligations to co-operate by military or other necessary means against an aggressor.
Regional Guarantees.—The second method received its first application in the Anglo-American-French guarantee treaties drawn up in 1919 at Paris. These treaties failed to secure ratifica tion, and were replaced by the Franco-Belgian, Franco-Polish and other similar treaties of alliance. The Little Entente was another example of the same method. But it was recognized even by the authors of these treaties that although they were subject to the Covenant of the League they were, nevertheless, liable to degen erate into alliances of the old sort, and that therefore they would be dangerous unless they were effectively controlled by the League. The Temporary Mixed Commission above mentioned in its draft treaty of mutual assistance for the first time com bined the two methods into one coherent system. The Protocol similarly recognized the utility of special treaties in support of general sanctions, but on condition that such special treaties could only be applied after it had been recognized by some im partial arbitrator that aggression had taken place.
After the failure of the combination method of the Geneva Protocol, a return was made in the Locarno Agreements to the method of partial treaties. These agreements, however, in no way resembled an old-time alliance; the concern of their authors was plainly to create one more stable element in a new system of general international sanctions against aggression. (See LEAGUE OF NATIONS and bibliography thereto and INTERNATIONAL LAW.)