League of

Nations

8) Structure of League of Nations

a. The League of Nations (LON) was the predecessor to the
United Nations. It represented a major attempt by the great
powers after the First World War (1914ñ18) to institutionalize a
system of collective security, and its founding Covenant was
formulated as part of the Treaty of Versailles (1919).
b. First Meeting: The first meeting was held in Geneva in 1920,
with 42 states represented. Over the next 26 years, a total of 63
states were represented at one time or another.
c. Last Meeting: The last meeting was held in 1946, at the end of
which the League was formally replaced by the United Nations
which promptly moved its headquarters to New York, reflecting
not only the status of the United States but also disillusionment
with the performance of the League.
d. Like the United Nations, the League consisted of an Assembly, a
Council, and a Secretariat. The Assembly, consisting of every
member state, convened annually in Geneva. The Council was
composed of several permanent members (France, Britain, Italy,
Japan, and later Germany and the Soviet Union) and some
nonpermanent members elected by the Assembly.
e. It met more often than the Assembly to consider political
disputes and to focus on the reduction of armaments. Its
decisions had to be unanimous. The Secretariat, the
administrative branch of the League, consisted of a Secretary-
General and a staff of 500 people.
f. Several other organizations were associated with the League
such as the World Court and the International Labour
Organization. To some extent, the League was an extension of
liberal, parliamentary practice to international relations. It was
based on the idea that political compromise arrived at by open
discussion was the best means to promote political stability, an
idea deeply held by one of the main architects of the League,
US President Woodrow Wilson.
g. Like so many international organisations, the League was also
designed in light of the alleged lessons of the First World War,
of which three were particularly important.
i. First, in 1914 Germany had crossed the border into France
and Belgium. It was believed that in future wars it would
be easy to decide who was the aggressor, a decision that
was meant to trigger a range of collective
countermeasures, ranging from diplomatic boycotts to the
imposition of sanctions and ultimately war.
ii. Second, the system for the prevention of conflicts rested
on the assumption that war could be prevented by the
application of reason based on legal principles. The idea
that power could be subordinated to law was a common
assumption among many idealists of the interwar period.
iii. Third, the speed of political developments in 1914 led to
the implementation of several mechanisms of delay to
slow down unilateral decision-making in a crisis. Only
after a period of three months subsequent to bringing a
dispute to the Council was resort to war legal. It was
assumed that such time limits would be respected.
h. The role of the League of Nations was:
i. It was based on the Fourteen Points of the US President
Woodrow Wilson.
ii. It was created to ensure that there would be no repeat of
the First World War.
iii. It was suppose to keep the peace by encouraging nations
to negotiate (talk) over disputes rather than resorting to
war.
iv. Members of the League agreed to 26 Articles in a Covenant
(list of rules).
v. Article 10 promised collective security whereby members
agreed that if one member were attacked all other members
would come to their protection.
vi. Initially 42 members joined which later grew to 59
members by the 1930s.
vii. The defeated countries like Germany were not allowed to
join.
 viii. The Soviet Union (Russia) was not allowed to join because it
was Communist.
ix. The USA despite the fact Wilsonís had founded it refused to
join the League.
9) Causes of Failure of League of Nations
a. The failure of the League to deter or punish aggression by Italy,
Japan, and ultimately Germany in the 1930s reflected some
fundamental flaws in the design of the League.
b. It should be noted that the League was never fully
representative of the international community.
c. The United States Senate did not ratify the treaties and did not
become a member of the League.
d. South Africa and Liberia were the only African states.
e. The Soviet Union was not invited to Versailles, and did not join
the League until 1934.
f. Few South American states were represented, and only China,
Japan, and Thailand represented Asia.
g. Germany was missing from the start in light of its alleged
responsibility for the First World War.
h. Because the League was primarily a European body, the
number of states that were able to carry out any police action
against an aggressor was effectively limited to France and
Britain. Without their consent, of course, no decision was likely
to be carried out, and France in particular was determined to use
the League to contain Germany in Europe.
i. The ultimate failure of the League to maintain international
peace and security was a product of its limited membership, its
preservation of a territorial settlement that humiliated Germany,
and its faith in the willingness of great powers to subordinate
their short-term national interests to the preservation of
international peace.
j. Confronted with the rise of fascism in Italy, Germany, and
Japan in the 1930s ñ a powerful bloc of states that glorified war
and embarked on a sustained rearmament programme to
achieve their aim to reconfigure the global balance of power in
their favour ñ the League was impotent.
 k. Indeed, it was established during a period in which powerful
states continued to rely on war as a means of resolving conflict,
and when new forms of nationalism not only undermined some
European empires (Austria, Hungary, Turkey) but also justified
new patterns of imperial domination.
l. In light of the rapid shifts in power that were taking place in the
first half of the twentieth century, combined with the diplomatic
isolation of the United States and the Soviet Union, it is hardly
surprising that the League participated in rather than prevented
the decline of Europe.
m. During 1938, Britain and France tried a new policy -
'appeasement' (negotiating directly with Hitler); this failed in
1939 when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia.
n. When war broke out in 1939, the League closed down; its
headquarters in Geneva remained empty throughout the war.
o. In 1943 - at a Conference in Tehran - America, Britain and
Russia agreed to set up a new international organisation (the
'United Nations') when the war finished.
p. On 12 April 1946, the League met in Geneva and formally
abolished itself. The British delegate, Robert Cecil, said: 'The
League is dead. Long live the United Nations'.
10) Powers of Council of League of Nations
a. To settle disputes between countries the League could: Start an
inquiry by the Council, Provide a hearing by an impartial neutral
country, Ask for a ruling by the Permanent Court of International
Justice.
b. The enforcement powers of the League of Nations included:
i. Moral Pressure (Turn world opinion against a guilty
country).
ii. Economic Sanctions (Stop countries trading with a guilty
country).
iii. Military Force (Go to war against a guilty country).
c. The Strengths of the League were:
i. It had the goodwill of governments and ordinary people
towards it.
ii. Most of the major countries had joined the League.
 iii. Defeated countries were later allowed to join the League.
iv. It provided a forum to end disputes peacefully.
d. The Weaknesses of the League were:
i. The USA did not join it.
ii. The Soviet Union (Russia) did not join until 1934.
iii. It had very little power and no permanent army.
iv. It failed to encourage disarmament.
v. International suspicions and rivalries between countries
continued.
vi. Countries left the League when they disagreed with its
decisions.
vii. Economic sanctions especially without US support proved
very ineffective.
viii. It had to uphold the Treaty of Versailles, which was
increasingly viewed as unfair.
ix. It failed to stop Japan (Manchuria), Italy (Abyssinia) or
Germany (Hitlerís breaking of the Treaty of Versailles).