What Can We Learn From the History of the League of Nations - Essay Example

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE HISTORY OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS? Coming into being after the end of World War I, the League of Nations is usually reminded for its failure to prevent World War II, disregarding the many successes and lessons the League left for the forthcoming years to the international order, and the circumstances and global atmosphere under which was created and developed its activities. These circumstances certainly were not favorable (Benes (1929-1930): 212). However, the legacy of the League cannot be questioned. Founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles on January 15th, 1919 as an idea mainly adopted by the Democratic US President Woodrow Wilson — disgusted by the massacre that had taken place during World War I — the League of Nations was born under the main goals of preventing war, disarmament and pacific settling of disputes. In addition to moral reasons there were also economic and political reasons. However, the moral reasons were the most powerful ones (Benes (1932-1933): 67). If we put in a balance its successes and failures, we can affirm in the first place that the League as an international organization represented a 360 degrees swing from the preceding years, being the League’s predecessors the International Hague Conventions (1899, 1907). It is undeniable the social success that the League had in establishing commissions and agencies, many of them working currently for the successor: the United Nations. In the opening words, Leon Bourgeois — chairman of the Council of the League of Nations — uttered: “January 16, 1920, will go down to history as the date of the birth of the new world” (Three Months of the League of Nations: 1). The founders of the UN — the most significant international organization of our times — took the model of the League as a starting point for the new organization, based on the lessons learned from the experiences of the League (Grigorescu: 36, 38). The League proved to be outstanding in the field of health preventing the spread of diseases. Its agency, the Health Organization later became the World Health Organization. The International Labor Organization started in those days and continues to exist today. It also needs to be pointed out the work done in the Third World to improve the status of women and child slave labor; current issues among the non-governmental organizations and the UN. Drug smuggling was also targeted and in this aspect the League can be considered a precursor taking into account that before WWI only timid attempts were made in this issue. In addition, we need to bear in mind the foundation of the League’s work in this almost unlimited field: the scientific publications (Sweetser: 181). That is to say that the UN followed the structure of the League, inherited a number of agencies, and tried to improve them. The main organs of the League were the General Assembly formed by the Members of the League which main task was to decide on the organization’s policy (Article 3 of the Covenant adopted by the Paris Peace Conference in April 1919); the Council that included 4 permanent members (Britain, France, Italy and Japan) and 4 (later became 9) others elected by the General Assembly every 3 years; the Permanent Secretariat that prepared the agenda and published reports of the meetings (art.6); and it created the Permanent Court of International Justice (art. 13) which has been previously recommended by the Second Hague Conference but no agreement had been achieved at that time (Donnell: 404). When the UN was constituted the Council became the UN Security Council with the principal allies in WWII as the permanent members (UK, USSR, France, US and China); decisions are binding on all members, but unanimity is not required; the Permanent Court of International Justice became the International Court of Justice; and the General Assembly and the Secretariat remained. With the League, authorization for any action required both a unanimous vote by the Council and a majority vote in the Assembly (art.5) making decisions difficult to be adopted, and this experience served as a basis for a change in the decision making process within the UN. Further, the efforts to provide and strengthen appropriate pacific instruments with the Permanent Court of International Justice were noteworthy in extending the idea of arbitration (Benes (1932-1933): 70). All these examples demonstrate that although many weaknesses are usually pointed out that tarnished the work of the League, the same weaknesses served as a basis to meliorate the forthcoming institutions. The League - similarly to the UN - had no armed forces and had to rely on the Great Powers to enforce its sanctions and the Great Powers were very reluctant to do so. Representation was often a problem as the most powerful countries were not members (the United States of America never joined the League as a result of the decision by the US Congress not to ratify the Versailles Treaty, Russia were communists and hated Britain and France, Germany was not allowed to join). However, the League had 42 countries members at the start, going to 60 in 1930´s and this made the League very strong, learning its successor, the UN, the importance of a strong representation. Although the failure to prevent WWII which basically made the League cease its activities is regularly repeated, there is lot to be learnt from the successes that the League of Nations had in adverting wars in the border disputes. As an example, we can mention the Atland Islands dispute were there were almost 6,500 islands mid-way between Sweden and Finland. The Swedish government brought the issue before the League in 1921. The League determined that they were part of Finland but should be governed autonomously. Another case arose from the border dispute between Albania and Yugoslavia. The League sent a commission that found in favor of Albania and Yugoslavia accepted the decision. The League succeeded once more in preventing war. Other examples can be: the decision accepted by Germany and Poland under the Upper Silesia conflict; the port city of Memel case that had a population mostly German and where the Lithuanian government claimed and started invading it in 1923. The League decided to cede the land to Lithuania but declared the port should remain an international zone. Lithuania agreed. Likewise, it is worth mentioning the incident between sentries on the border between Greece and Bulgaria in 1925, where the League condemned the Greek invasion and called for a withdrawal and compensation to Bulgaria. Greece complied. Last but not least, we can cite the several border conflicts between Colombia and Peru, where there was a Peruvian take-over of the Colombian border town called Leticia resulting in an armed conflict between the two nations. Both nations accepted conciliation by the League and a peace agreement was signed. Consequently, Leticia was turned to Colombia, and a formal apology from Peru was received. To conclude, we can say that it is important to recognize that the problems the League was forced to face are still with us in the year 2008 so it would be not right to criticize the League for failing to eradicate them with the more limited resources it had. However, as we can appreciate through this essay, the most important lesson that the League left to us is that no organization had tackled these issues before, and that something needed to be done. Profound changes were taking place in the organization of international life. For these changes the League of Nations has been responsible (Sweetser: 179). Later works about the League after WWII have treated the League experience as a movement from a moment of law to politics. The league is thought to have begun with a resounding legal bang which sought to transform politics into law (Kennedy: 871). At the 1943 Tehran Conference, the Allied Powers agreed to create a new body to replace the League. This means that the world was aware of its value. This body was the UN. The tasks of the League will never be completed; they are eternal. The necessity of organizing international cooperation will always exist, because new situations will always arise to demand its adjustment (Benes (1929-1930): 223). There can be no doubt in the future there will be a need for more international cooperation than in the past. The League made appreciable contributions not only to the solution of day–to-day problems but to the opening of new subjects and new methods (Sweetser: 192). Hence, when talking about the new global order and its domains, the League will always remain in our minds as the first big step towards it. BIBLIOGRAPHY Benes, Eduard. “Ten Years of the League”. 8 Foreign Aff. 212 (1929-1930): 212-224. Benes, Eduard. “The League of Nations: successes and failures”. 11 Foreign Aff. 66 (1932-1933): 66-80. Corbett, P.E. “What is the League of Nations?” British Yearbook Int.L. (1924): 119-148. Damrosch, Henkin, et al. International Law Cases and Materials. Fourth Edition (2001) Chapter V. Donnell, Forrest. “The World Court”. 35 Com.L.J. (1930): 404-409. Grigorescu, Alexandru. “Mapping the UN-League of Nations Analogy: Are there still lessons to be learned from the League?” Global Governance 11. (2005): 25-42. Kennedy, David. “The Move to Institutions”. 8 Cardozo Law Review, 841 (1987). Kirgis. ”International Organizations in Their Legal Setting”. (1977): 1-6 “The Avalon Project: The Covenant of the League of Nations”. “The League of Nations Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes”. “Three Months of the League of Nations”. 1920-1921 World Peace Foundation Pamphlet: 1-3. Read More