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Article I provides: "All disputes of every kind between Germany and Czecho-Slovakia with regard to which the parties are in conflict as to their respective rights, and which it may not be possible to settle amicably by the normal methods of diplomacy, shall be submitted for decision either to an arbitral tribunal or to the Permanent Court of International Justice as laid down hereafter." And it is then stated that "disputes arising out of the past" are not affected; nor are those whose settlement is provided for by other treaties.
Articles II to V set up a "Permanent Conciliation Commission to which the two nations may and ordinarily will submit all disputes before proceeding even to arbitration. This commission shall consist of five members: a German, a Czecho-Slovakian, and three nationals of three other powers, one of whom shall be President, and elaborate machinery is sketched for the amicable arrangement of its machinery.
Articles V to XV define the procedure, duties and powers of the Conciliation Commission. Its ordinary procedure is to be in accordance with the rules laid down by the Hague Convention of 1907 for settling international disputes. Its duties embrace: the extensive investigation of matters in disputes between Germany and Czechoslovakia; the responsibility of attempting to reconcile the disputants; and the making of reports which shall formulate the information gathered and show what progress has been made towards a settlement. To this end the Commission is to be given guarantees that the disputants will aid it in gathering evidence. The Commission is to meet by request of one or both of the disputants, or upon its own initiative; and make its decisions by a simple majority vote.
Articles XV to XX provide the actual arbitration machinery. In the event that the Conciliation Convention fails to resolve a dispute, the Permanent Court of International Justice or an arbitral tribunal in accordance with the Hague Convention of 1907, is to have the dispute laid before it. It is also provided that by request of either party the question may be brought before the Council of the League. Provisional measures are then to be outlined by the adjudicating body, and the disputants are bound by this treaty to accept and give aid to such measures. The provisions of the treaty are to apply among the signatory powers, even where the dispute concerns another power.
Article XXI declares that the rights of the signatory powers before the League and the powers of the League are not affected by the Treaty. It is this article which is left out of the German-French and German-Belgian treaties because the point is already covered for those nations in the Rhineland treaty.
Article XXII concludes the treaty and stipulates that it shall come into force upon substantially the same terms as the Rhine treaty, after being registered with the League.
The Guarantee Treaties (Franco-Polish and Franco-Czecho-Slovakian) are identical, and provide that the signatory powers will come to one another's aid if Germany shall violate the arbitration treaties she signed with each of the three "by an unprovoked recourse to arms."
Looking backward, after having scanned so much of the future in the Locarno treaties, observers recollect that the principal international conferences since the World War have been: