The capturing of prizes (enemy equipment, vehicles, and especially ships) during wartime is a tradition that goes back as far as organized warfare itself.
Even as a draft, the convention was innovative for the time, in being both the first ever treaty for a truly international court (as opposed to a mere arbitral tribunal), and in providing individuals with access to the court, going against the prevailing doctrines of international law at the time, according to which only states had rights and duties under international law.
The protocol was an attempt to resolve some concerns expressed by the United States at the court, which felt it to be in violation of its constitutional provision that provides for the U.S. Supreme Court being the final judicial authority.
However, neither the convention nor the subsequent protocol ever entered into force, since only Nicaragua ratified the agreements.
On February 15, 1911, the U.S. Senate ratified the International Prize Court Convention.