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2021 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

4. The Life and Death of the League of Nations

Author : Deepak Mawar

Published in: States Undermining International Law

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Abstract

The interbellum period is analysed in order to historicise the successes and failures of the League of Nations. Such historicisation recounts the initial hurdles that faced the creators of the League, the success it enjoyed during its first decade of existence, and the eventual downfall that the international organisation suffered during the 1930s as it failed to deal with States prioritising their realist ambitions over the collective goals of the international community. By mapping out and examining the conditions under which the League of Nations succeeded and failed, the positive influence of utopian focal goals can be identified when the League was successful in maintaining international peace and security, whilst also demonstrating how reliant international law is on the will of States. Furthermore, such analysis highlights how willing States can be to undermine international law if an advantage can be gained.

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previous chapter States and Utopian Goals of International Law

next chapter The United Nations Security Council and Power Politics

Covenant of the League of Nations, (1920), Preamble.

D. Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World War as a Political Tragedy, (2004), at 256.

Ibid at 256.

A. Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, (1998), at 161.

Ibid., at 161.

Ibid., at 164.

Foreign Relations of the United States, (1919), vol. 3, at 492, at 537. See also M. MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World, (2001), 89.

Clemenceau stated a day before the Paris Conference ceremony, ‘We are the league of people,’ whilst Wilson replied, ‘We are the State.’ See L.A. Marescotti, Nuovi ricordi, (1938), at 102; Foreign Relations of the United Nations, (1919), vol. 3, 614, at 620–622.

O.A. Hathaway & S.J. Shapiro, The Internationals: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World, (2017), at 113.

Macmillan, supra note 7, at 132.

Cecil, A Great Experiment, (1941), at 63; P. Raffo, The League of Nations, (1974), 166; Papers of Woodrow Wilson, (1919) vol. 54, at 152.

Foreign Relations of the United States, (1919) vol. 3, at 176–201.

Macmillan, supra note 7, at 134–135.

G.W. Egerton, Great Britain and the Creation of the League of Nations, (1978), 134–135; H. Miller, Drafting of the Covenant, (1928), vol. 1, 209, at 216–217.

Macmillan, supra note 7, at 137.

Ibid. See also Papers of Woodrow Wilson, (1919), vol. 55, at 120 & Cecil, supra note 11, at 72.

Ibid.

This is reference to the pre-World War Westphalian model of international law. See D. Kennedy, ‘The Move to Institutions’, (1987), 8 Cardozo Law Review 841, at 868.

Ibid., at 868.

A. Zimmern, ‘International Law and Social Consciousness’, (1934) 20 Transactions of the Grotius Society 25, at 25.

Ibid., at 137–138.

Kennedy, supra note 18 at 852. See also B. Schmitt & H. Vedeler, The World in the Crucible 1914–1919, (1984), at 27.

L. Oppenheim, The League of Nations and its Problems-Three Lectures, (1919), at 6.

Ibid., at 6. See also Kennedy, supra note 18, at 904.

P.J. Yearwood, The Guarantee of Peace: The League of Nations in British Policy 1914–1925, (2009), at 88.

F.P. Walters, The History of the League of Nations, (1969), at 31.

Yearwood, supra note 25, at 138.

Foreign Office 371/4251.

Walters, supra note 26.

Council of Four, 25 June 1919, Link (ed.), Deliberations, ii. 551–552.

See Lord Balfour’s remarks at the eight meeting of the Council, August 2, 1920. This quote can also be found in A. Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, (1998), at 311.

Article 10 of the Covenant of the League of Nations covers the obligation Member-States have to respect and preserve the territory of other States and refrain from the use of external aggression on the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all Members of the League. Article 16 stipulates the consequences of Member-States resorting to acts of war, and subsequently the steps the Council may take to deal with such situations.

Article 10 stipulates that ‘In case of any such aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression the Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled.’ In such a circumstance Britain sought to avoid the obligation to ‘police’ the international community and instead would use the Council to advise or make recommendations on how to deal with acts of aggression not permitted by the Covenant.

A. Zimmern, supra note 4, at 312.

Walters, supra note 26, at 94.

S. Pederson, The Guardians: The League of Nations and Crisis of Empire, (2015), at 46–50.

Typifying such sentiments is Dean Inge, who led the official League of Nations sermon in Geneva Cathedral: ‘… during the war we all sinned together in vilifying our opponents. We now feel that the nations all went stark mad together and brought upon themselves and each other a calamity as unnecessary as it was disastrous. Our plain duty now is to restore the solidarity of European civilization, to help the crippled nations to recover and to create whatever safeguards that are possible against another outbreak, from which there could be no recovery. Our justice must be touched with generosity and we must help to bear one another’s burden, moral as well as material.’ Quote taken from C. Howard-Ellis, The Origin, Structure and Working of The League of Nations, (1928), at 36.

Walters, supra note 26, at 296.

Zimmern, supra note 4 at 305.

Pederson, supra note 36, at 55–57.

Zimmern, supra note 4, at 329.

W.J. Curtis, ‘Permanent Court of International Justice’, (1992) 8 American Bar Association Journal 158, at 158.

Ibid.

P. Malanczuk, Akehurst’s Modern Introduction to International Law, (1997), at 24.

H.J. Schlochauer, ‘Permanent Court of Arbitration’, (1981) 1, EPIL 157, at 157–163.

Walters, supra note 26, at 153.

Ibid., at 153.

Ibid., at 155.

Ibid., at 156.

Ibid., at 158.

By this stage of the dispute Italy had withdrawn their troops and detached themselves from the dispute.

Ibid., at 160.

Ibid., at 161.

Ibid., at 286. Speaking to the British Press, Chamberlain claimed that the Locarno Treaties were the ‘real dividing line between years of war and years of peace.’ Quote taken from C.A. Macartney, ‘Survey of International Affairs 1925, Vol. 2’, (1928) 33 Royal Institute of International Affairs 1895, at 1956.

J. Wright, ‘Stresemann and Locarno’, (2008) 4 Contemporary European History 109, at 111.

J. Jacobson, ‘The Conduct of Locarno Diplomacy’, (1972) 34 The Review of Politics 67, at 69.

Ibid. at 291.

C.J. Fenwick, ‘The Legal Significance of the Locarno Agreements’, (January 1926) 20(1) AJIL 108, at 110.

Ibid., at 110.

Ibid., at 111.

Wright, supra note 55, at 112.

E.M. Borchard, ‘The Multilateral Treaty for the Renunciation of War’, (1929) 23 AJIL 116, at 117.

Walters, supra note 26, at 308.

Article 3, Paragraph 2 of the Treaty of Lausanne (Frontier Between Turkey and Iraq), Collection of Advisory Opinions, 21 November 1925, PCIJ at 31–32.

Zimmern, supra note 6, at 379.

Covenant of the League of Nations, (1920), Article 11.

‘Reduction of Armaments’, (May 1928) 9(5) The League of Nations Official Journal 608, at 703.

Walters, supra note 26, at 312.

Ibid.

Ibid., at 313.

Ibid.

Zimmern, supra note 4, at 383.

Walters, supra note 26, at 381.

Ibid., at 384.

When addressing the public, when the Kellogg-Briand pact was being signed, Aristide Briand declared that this day ‘marks a new date in the history of mankind, and the end of selfish and wilful warfare,’ for this treaty attacked ‘the evil at its very root’ by depriving war of its ‘legitimacy.’ U.S. Department of State, Treaty for the Renunciation of War: Text of the Treaty, Notes Exchanged, Instruments of Ratification and of Adherence, and Other Papers (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1933), 308–309 (French original text) and 313–14 (English translation).

Hathaway & Shapiro, supra note 9, at 10.

Ibid., at 12.

Ibid.

Ibid., at 13.

E.H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919–1939: An Introduction to The Study of International Relations, (1946), at 140.

C. Howard-Ellis, The Origin, Structure and Working of The League of Nations, (1928), at 58.

Walters, supra note 26, at 227.

P. Allott, The Health of Nations: The Society and Law Beyond the State, (2002), at 387, para 18.30.

Carr, supra note 81, at 140.

D. Rothermond, The Global Impact of the Great Depression, (1996), at 2.

Ibid., at 19.

B. Eichengreen & D.A. Irwin, ‘The Slide to Protectionism in the Great Depression: Who Succumbed and Why?’, (2010) 70 The Journal of Economic History 871, at 873.

Rothermond, supra note 86, at 31.

C. Fischer, The Ruhr Crisis 1923–1924, (2003), 223–224.

C. Fischer, ‘The Failure of the Détente? German-French Relations Between Stresemann and Hitler’, in Frank McDonough (ed.), The Origins of the Second World War: An International Perspective, (2011), 87–91.

Eichengreen and Irwin, supra note 89, at 894.

Ibid., at 876.

League of Nations, Review of World Trade, (1938), at 62.

C. Fischer, ‘The Failed European Union: Franco-German Relations during the Great Depression of 1929–1932’, (2012) 34 The International History Review 1, at 3.

Walters, supra note 26, at 429.

Ibid., at 217.

The Covenant of the League of Nations, (1920).

100

‘The Question of Armament Notes’, (1921) 2 League of Nations Official Journal 256, at 256–259.

101

For the peace treaties with Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey, each of which incorporated the Covenant of League of Nations, see The Treaties of Peace, 1919–1923, (1924), at 2.

102

A. Webster, ‘The Transnational Dream: Politicians, Diplomats, and Soldiers in the League of Nations’ Pursuit of International Disarmament 1920–1938’, (2005) 14(4) Contemporary European History 493, at 495.

103

See ‘Temporary Mixed Commission for the Reduction of Armaments’, (1921) 2 League of Nations Official Journal 743, at 743–745.

104

Walters, supra note 26, at 220.

105

Ibid., at 223.

106

‘Temporary Mixed Commission for the Reduction of Arms Note’, (1922) 3 League of Nations Official Journal 316, at 316–317.

107

Ibid., at 224.

108

Webster, supra note 102, at 506.

109

Walters, supra note 26, at 226.

110

France’s stated that: ‘The Government of the Republic is extremely desirous of affording co-operation, in as wide a measure as possible, with all efforts which aim at maintaining peace and at enabling a reduction of armaments to be effected by means of a definite and effectual scheme for mutual assistance between States Members of the League.’ ‘Reduction of Armaments Note’, (1923) 3 League of Nations Official Journal 1073, at 1080.

111

Ibid., at 1081–1082.

112

Walters, supra note 26, at 226.

113

‘Reduction of Arms Note’, supra note 111, 1073–1095.

114

‘Reduction of Armaments Note’, (1924) 5 League of Nations Official Journal 1035, at 1036–1039.

115

Walters, supra note 26, at 227.

116

Ibid., at 365.

117

League of Nations, Special Commission for the Preparation of a Draft Convention on the Private Manufacture of Arms and Ammunition and of Implements of War, Report of the Special Commission to the Council on the work of its first session, C.219.M.142.1927.IX, (April 27, 1927).

118

Ibid., at 372.

119

Ibid., at 373.

120

League of Nations, Assembly, Arbitration, Security, Disarmament and the Work of the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference, A.124.1927.IX (September 26, 1927).

121

Walters, supra note 26, at 374.

122

‘All sixty-four recognised countries of the world, except four of the smallest Latin American Republics were present. By the eminence of the principled delegates; by the numbers and qualification of expert advisors; by the importance for the whole world of the work they had assembled to perform; by the public interest, as shown by the crowds of journalists who reported its proceedings; it was at least the greatest since the Paris Conference of Peace.’ See: Walters, supra note 26, at 501.

123

League of Nations, Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference, Documents of the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference entrusted with the preparation for the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, C.4.M.4.1931.IX (January 15, 1931), at 366.

124

Walters, supra note 26, at 374.

125

League of Nations, Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, Draft Proposals by the United Kingdom Delegation, 1933.IX.1 (January 30, 1933).

126

‘Notification by the German Government of its Intention to Withdraw from the League of Nations’, (1934) 15 League of Nations Official Journal 16, at 16.

127

H.F. Armstrong, The Foreign Policy of the Powers, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Soviet Russia, the United States, (1935), at 86–87.

128

Zimmern, supra note 4, at 410.

129

Ibid., at 417.

130

Walters, supra note 26, at 467.

131

Ibid., at 468.

132

Ibid., at 471.

133

‘Appeal of the Chinese Government under Article 11 of the Covenant’, (1932) 13 League of Nations Official Journal 283, at 283–305.

134

‘Appeal of the Chinese Government under the Covenant’, (1932) 13 League of Nations Official Journal 956, at 956–957.

135

‘Seventh Meeting (Public) Sixty-Fifth Session of the Council’, (1931) 12 League of Nations Official Journal 2304, at 2307–2308.

136

‘Eight Meeting (Public) Sixty-Fifth Session of the Council’, (1931) 12 League of Nations Official Journal 2309, at 2309–2312.

137

‘Nineteenth Meeting (Public) Sixty-Fifth Session of the Council’, (1931) 12 League of Nations Official Journal 2371, at 2374–2376.

138

Walters, supra note 26, at 483.

139

Ibid., at 484.

140

‘Second Meeting (Public) Sixty-Sixth Session of the Council’, (1932) 13 League of Nations Official Journal 326, at 327. Chinese representative Yen Hui-Ch’ing: ‘At the very outset China had the choice between preparing for her own defence and placing her faith in treaties and in the League. China today is not a military nation. She chose to come to the League, especially when it was in session. This Council has patiently and earnestly devoted six weeks of its time at twenty meetings to a conscientious effort to adjust the matter. Two resolutions have been unanimously passed. Each one of them was predicated upon a solemn promise by Japan to withdraw her troops as rapidly as possible. The promise has-been broken. In place of progressive withdrawal, there has been progressive advance. Since the Council adjourned six weeks ago the aggression has been relentlessly continued until, in the words of the American Secretary of State, “the last remaining administrative authority of the Government of the Chinese Republic in South Manchuria, as it existed prior to September 18^th, 1931, has been destroyed” Chinchow and the territory to the south including Shanghaikwan have gone the way of Mukden, Changchun, Antung, Yinkow, Kirn, Tsitsihar and a score of other cities. Japan is now invading the province of Johol, hundreds of miles from the railway from Mukden to Peiping, and endangering cities in north, central, and even south China, as witness the latest threats to occupy Foochow, Tsmgtao and Shanghai points far away from the borders of what hitherto has been known as Manchuria.’

141

Walters, supra note 26, at 490–491.

142

S. Wilson, ‘The Manchurian Crisis and Moderate Japanese Intellectuals: The Japan Council of the Institute of Pacific Relations’, (1992) 26(3) Modern Asian Studies 507, at 508.

143

Walters, supra note 26, at 494.

144

‘Notification by the Japanese Government of Its Intention to Withdraw from the League of Nations’, (1933) 14 League of Nations Official Journal 657, at 657–658.

145

‘Annexes’, (1935) 16 League of Nations Official Journal 193, at 252.

146

‘Eight Meeting (Public) Eighty-Fourth Session of the Council’, (1935) 16 League of Nations Official Journal 161, at 162–163.

147

J.H. Spencer, ‘The Italian-Ethiopian Dispute and the League of Nations’, (1937) 31.4 AJIL 614, at 616.

148

‘First Meeting (Private) Eighty-Fifth (Extraordinary) Session of the Council’, (1935) 16 League of Nations Official Journal 546, at 546.

149

‘Annexes-Notes of the Ethiopian Government of March 16^th and 17^th 1935’, (1935) 16 League of Nations Official Journal 569, at 571–572.

150

Spencer, supra note 148, at 618.

151

‘Fifth Meeting (Public) Eighty-Sixth Session of the Council’, (1935) 16 League of Nations Official Journal 639, at 640.

152

Spencer, supra note 148, at 618.

153

Walters, supra note 26, at 642.

Ibid., at 642.

Ibid., at 643.

Ibid.

‘First Meeting (Private, Then Public) Eighty-Eighth Session of the Council’, (1935) 16 League of Nations Official Journal 1132, at 1137. Italian representative Baron Aloisi: ‘While the League Covenant states that the wellbeing and development of backward peoples form “a sacred trust of civilisation” while the treaties lay down the fundamental guarantees to be required of Governments Members of the League of Nations and the International Labour Office in order to ensure a minimum of rights, well-being and equitable treatment for all their nationals, the terrible scourge of slavery still exists in Ethiopia. Whole populations of vast areas conquered by her in the past fifty years are still decimated by raids and subjected to slavery in all its cruellest forms. Civilised nations must refuse friendship with a State which allows such customs to continue. To claim that Members of the League are bound to observe the rules of the Covenant in their relations with a Member who has always persistently failed to observe them is contrary to every principle of right and justice.’

158

Walters, supra note 26, at 643.

159

Ibid., at 644.

160

‘Third Meeting (Private, then Public) Eighty Eighth Session of the Council’, (1935) 16 League of Nations Official Journal 1143, at 1145.

161

Spencer, supra note 148, at 622.

162

‘Fifth Meeting (Private, then Public) Eighty-Eighth Session of the Council’, (1935) 16 League of Nations Official Journal 1209, 1209–1213.

163

Walters, supra note 26, at 653.

164

‘Seventh Meeting (Public) Eighty-Ninth Session of the Council’, (1935) 16 League of Nations Official Journal 1125, at 1226.

165

Proposal III prohibited the imports of Italian goods, whilst proposal IV provided an embargo on exports to Italy.

166

Walters, supra note 26, at 667.

167

Ibid., at 669.

168

Spencer, supra note 108, at 629.

169

Walters, supra note 26, at 767–677.

170

‘Annexes’, (1936), 17 League of Nations Official Journal 395, at 395.

171

‘Annexes’ (1936), 17 League of Nations Official Journal 15, at 20.

172

Walters, supra note 26, at 678.

173

‘Tenth Meeting (Private, Then Public) Ninety-First (Extraordinary) Session of the Council’, (1936) 17 League of Nations Official Journal 376, at 377.

174

Walters, supra note 26, at 618.

175

‘First Meeting (Private, Then Public) Ninety-Second Session of the Council’, (1936) 17 League of Nations Official Journal 534, at 535. Baron Aloisi: ‘I beg to state that the Italian delegation cannot agree to the so-called Ethiopian representative being present at the Council table. Nothing resembling an organised Ethiopian exists. The only sovereignty in Ethiopia is Italian sovereignty. Any discussion on a dispute between Ethiopia and Italy would accordingly be pointless. I am bound, therefore, not to take part in it.’

176

Walters, supra note 26, at 678.

177

H.L. ‘The Stresa Conference, (April 1935) 11(2) Bulletin of International News 3, at 3.

178

‘Fifth Meeting (Private) Eighty-Fifth (Extraordinary) Session of the Council’, (1935) 16 League of Nations Official Journal 546, at 550–551.

179

‘Free City of Danzig Note’, (1936) 17 League of Nations Official Journal 511, at 511–516.

180

‘Fifth Meeting (Private) Ninety-Second Session of the Council’, (1936) 17 League of Nations Official Journal 757, at 762–769.

181

‘Situation of Austria: Declaration by the Mexican Government Note’, (1938) 19 League of Nations Official Journal 239, at 239. ‘In view of the suppression of Austria as an independent State as the result of armed foreign intervention, and since the Council of the League of Nations has not as yet been convened with a view to the application of Article 10 of the Covenant, which requires the Members of the League to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and political independence of all Members, I have the honour, acting on the instructions of the Mexican Government, to transmit to you the following declarations, and to request you to be good enough to bring them to the knowledge of the States Members of the League. The political extinction of Austria, in the form and circumstances in which it has taken place, constitutes a serious infringement of the League Covenant and the established principles of international law.’

182

P. Allott, The Health of Nations: Society and Law Beyond the State, (2005), x.

183

Ibid.

184

H. Laski, A Grammar of Politics, (1925), 20.

185

Carr, supra note 81, at 97.

186

Ibid., at 106.

187

G. Catlin, The Science and Method of Politics, (1964), 309.

Title: The Life and Death of the League of Nations
Author: Deepak Mawar
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: States Undermining International Law
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-64788-9

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-64789-6

Copyright Year: 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64789-6_4

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