78. The Greek Government invokes as a basis for the Court's jurisdiction in the present case Article 17 of the General Act under which the parties agreed to submit to judicial settlement al1 disputes with regard to which they "are in conflict as to their respective rights". Yet the rights that are the subject of the claims upon which Greece requests the Court in the Application to exercise its jurisdiction under Article 17 are the very rights over the continental shelf of which, as Greece insists, the authors of the General Act could have had no idea whatever in 1928. If the Greek Government is correct, as it undoubtedly is, in assurning that the meaning of the generic term "rights" in Article 17 follows the evolution of the law, so as to be capable of embracing rights over the continental shelf, it is not clear why the similar term "territorial status" should not likewise be liable to evolve in meaning in accordance with "the development of international relations" (P.C.I.J., Series B, No. 4, p. 24). It may also be observed that the claims which are the subject-matter of the Application relate more particularly to continental shelf rights claimed to appertain to Greece in virtue of its sovereignty over certain islands in the Aegean Sea, including the islands of the "Dodecanese group" (para. 29 of the Application). But the Dodecanese group was not in Greece's possession when it acceded to the General Act in 1931;for those islands were ceded to Greece by kaly only in the Peace Treaty of 1947. In consequence, it seems clear that, in the view of the Greek Government, the term "rights" in Article 17 of the General Act has to be interpreted in the light of the geographical extent of the Greek State today, not of its extent in 1931. It would then be a little surprising if the meaning of Greece's reservation of disputes relating to its "territorial status" was not also to evolve in the light of the change in the territorial extent of the Greek State brought about by "the development of international relations". 79. Furthermore, the close and necessary link that always exists between a jurisdictional clause and reservations to it, makes it difficult to accept that the meaning of the clause, but not of the reservation, should follow the evolution of the law. In the present instance, this difficulty is underlined by the fact that alongside Greece's reservation of disputes relating toits "territorial status" in reservation (b)is another reservation of disputes relating to questions of "domestic jurisdiction", the content of which, as the Court has already had occasion to note, is "an essentially relative question" and undoubtedly "depends upon the development of international relations" (paragraph 59 above). Again, the Court c m see no valid reason why one part of reservation (b) should have been intended to follow the evolution of international relations but not the other, unless such an intention should have been made plain by Greece at the time. 80. Having regard to the foregoing considerations, the Court is of the opinion that the expression in reservation (b) "disputes relating to the territorial status of Greece" must be interpreted in accordance with the rules of international law as they exist today, and not as they existed in