League of Nations

Essay on League of Nation

The League of Nations was established in April 1919 to deal with the difficult international problems.

The League, as well as the framework and structure is bounded by the covenant. It aimed to maintain peace through collective security. It consists of the Assembly, the Council, the Secretariat, Court of International Justice, the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Mandates Commission.

The Assembly was the League’s debating chamber, consisting of not more than three delegates from each member state, with each member only entitled to one vote. The members met annually, dealing with international problems brought before it. It admitted new members and controlled the budget. It also elected non-permanent members of the Council. Any decision taken had to be unanimous.

The Council consisted of 4 permanent members Britain, France, Italy and Japan. Germany joined later in 1926. It also started with 4 non-permanent members of which one was Poland. This number was increased to 11 by 1936. They meet at least three times a year, and dealt with problems when the Assembly was not in session. It could organize sanctions against an offending state. All decisions had to be unanimous.

The Secretariat consisted of permanent officials acting as salaried civil servants of the League in Geneva. They do all the administrative work, preparing agendas, and writing resolutions and reports for f the League. The Secretariat was divided into different sections, such as finance, drugs, health and disarmament. Its first Secretary-General, Sir Eric Drummond, succeeded in his aim to develop a body of international civil servants that were loyal to the League as opposed to individual states.

The Permanent Court of Justice was based at The Hague in Holland since 1921. It consists of fifteen judges of different nationalities, elected by the assembly. They represent the world’s different legal systems. It dealt with legal disputes, as opposed to political disputes between states. It also advised the Assembly and Council if asked. However, decisions were not binding.

The international labour organization aimed to improve the working conditions by fixing a maximum working day and week, recommend appropriate wages for workers and lay down minimum entitlements for sickness, injury and old-age benefit. It also worked to ensure freedom for trade unions to organize their members to enjoy rights. It is associated to all League members. Non members could be elected in.

Commissions and Special Committees (or if preferred: specialized agencies) were set up to carry out much of the League’s work. Each committee/agency specialized in a certain objective.

The disarmament agency aimed to reduce armament in a great scale. It mad little progress as members could not agree on the issue. However, it did manage to reduce the arms ratio of USA, Britain and Japan to 10:10:7 respectively.

The Commission for Refugees, supervised by High Commissioner, aimed to repatriate and secure the welfare of people displaced by the war. They managed to restore 400,000 prisoners of thirty nationalities to their homeland.

The Commission for Slavery was aimed to reduce slavery worldwide. It asked members to cooperate to stamp out slave dealing. However, there were still reports of slave dealings in 1937. The commission inquired all members about slavery in states.


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