When was league of nations formed

An effective League, he believed, would mitigate any inequities in the peace terms. The struggle to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant in the U. Congress helped define the most important political division over the role of the United States in the world for a generation.

A triumphant Wilson returned to the United States in February to submit the Treaty and Covenant to Congress for its consent and ratification. Unfortunately for the President, while popular support for the League was still strong, opposition within Congress and the press had begun building even before he had left for Paris. They adhered to a vision of the United States returning to its traditional aversion to commitments outside the Western Hemisphere. Nine months later, Warren Harding was elected President on a platform opposing the League.

The United States never joined the League. Most historians hold that the League operated much less effectively without U. However, even while rejecting membership, the Republican Presidents of the period, and their foreign policy architects, agreed with many of its goals.

In the structure and process of the League were laid out in a covenant developed by all the countries taking part in the Paris Peace Conference. The League began organizational work in the fall of , spending its first 10 months with a headquarters in London before moving to Geneva. The Covenant of the League of Nations went into effect on January 10, , formally instituting the League of Nations.

By , 48 countries had joined. The League struggled for the right opportunity to assert its authority. Secretary-general Sir Eric Drummond believed that failure was likely to damage the burgeoning organization, so it was best not to insinuate itself into just any dispute. When Russia, which was not a member of the League, attacked a port in Persia in , Persia appealed to the League for help.

Adding to the growing pains, some European countries had a hard time handing over autonomy when seeking help with disputes. There were situations in which the League had no choice but to get involved. From to , the League acted as a trustee of a tiny region between France and Germany called the Saar. The League became the year custodian of the coal-rich area to allow it time to determine on its own which of the two countries it wished to join, with Germany being the eventual choice.

A similar situation happened in Danzig, which was set-up as a free city by the Treaty of Versailles and became the center of a dispute between Germany and Poland. The League administered Danzig for several years before it fell back under German rule.

Poland was in frequent distress, fearing for its independence against threats from neighboring Russia, which in occupied the city of Vilna and handed it over to Lithuanian allies. Following a demand that Poland recognize Lithuanian independence, the League became involved. Vilna was returned to Poland, but hostilities with Lithuania continued. In , following the murder of Italian General Enrico Tellini and his staff within the borders of Greece, Benito Mussolini retaliated by bombing and invading the Greek island Corfu.

The League was left on the sidelines watching as the dispute was solved instead by the Conference of Ambassadors, an Allied group that was later made part of the League.

The Incident at Petrich followed two years later. Bulgaria apologized and begged the League for help. The League decreed a settlement that was accepted by both countries. Other League efforts include the Geneva Protocol, devised in the s to limit what is now understood as chemical and biological weaponry, and the World Disarmament Conference in the s, which was meant to make disarmament a reality but failed after Adolf Hitler broke away from the conference and the League in In the League created its Mandates Commission, charged with protecting minorities.

Its suggestions about Africa were treated seriously by France and Belgium but ignored by South Africa. In , the Mandates Commission helped Iraq join the League. Other agreements concerned the simplification of passport and visa procedures, the regulation of the passage of commercial and touring motorcars, international road traffic and the transmission of electric power across national frontiers.

In addition, the organization provided practical expert advice to individual States such as China, and worked on reforming the calendar. In and , several agreements intended to protect the rights of women and children were put in place by a number of States. As a result, Article 23 of the Covenant entrusted the League of Nations with supervising the execution of these agreements, and in , an International Conference held in Geneva drew up a Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children that was ratified by 48 States.

The Assembly launched two extensive enquiries in order to assemble data for the campaign against such traffic in both the East and the West. Several committees succeeded in discussing and improving some conditions. For example, in a number of countries, the age of marriage and consent was legally raised and licensed brothels were abolished.

The rights of illegitimate children were also discussed. In addition, 50 countries accepted the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child , which dealt with issues such as the placement of children in families, the support of blind children, and the effects of economic depression and unemployment on children and young people.

In , the Assembly established an Information Centre for questions regarding child welfare. The Centre collected and classified as much information as possible on this subject. After , the committees dealt with post-war societal problems. Established in Paris in , the International Health Office collected and distributed information from various health departments around the world, though it had no authority to act on its own.

However, these bodies were not associated with the Paris International Health Office because of disagreements that existed primarily between the United States of America and some Member States. Under the leadership of Dr. In addition to its information service, the Health Section acted as a link between national health administrations in many ways.

For example, it extended its support to governments through the promotion of technical assistance, and it advised the Assembly and the Health Council on all international public health questions.

For these reasons it is considered one of the most successful auxiliary organizations of the League of Nations. As a result of the Warsaw Health Conference, plans were set up to control the spread of epidemic diseases in Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean countries, the Far East, and the Soviet Union.

Through these institutions, several vaccines for diphtheria, tetanus and tuberculosis for example were standardized worldwide. The first global attempt to control the traffic in opium and other deadly habit-forming drugs such as morphine, heroin and cocaine occurred via The Hague Convention, signed by 42 nations in The signatory States agreed to allow only such drugs coming into their countries which were considered necessary for medicinal and scientific purposes.

However, before this Convention could be implemented, the First World War broke out. After the war, the League of Nations was entrusted with reactivating The Hague Convention of , and an Opium Advisory Committee was appointed by the Council with the task of convincing States to re-adhere to its edicts.

However, it became evident that in order to prevent the illicit smuggling of drugs, drug manufacture and production had to be controlled at the source. Thus, in and , the League of Nations organized two Opium Conferences to deal with this issue. The Convention of the First Conference strengthened the original Convention of ; the second Conference added practical control measures to be implemented regarding the production and manufacture of narcotic substances.

Responsibility was transferred to the United Nations, whose Advisory Committee continues to deal with this issue through its Commission on Narcotic Drugs. The League of Nations was concerned not only with the exchange of political ideals and material goods, but also with the study of strategies that could reinforce intellectual relations between States. Its purpose was to improve the working conditions of the educated workforce and to build up international relations between teachers, artists, scientists and members of other intellectual professions; national committees were to support their efforts.

The ICC submitted a modest proposal of its plans in the early s, but the Assembly refused to supply it with a budget that would allow it to remain in Geneva.

Its first director, M. Bergson, was followed by Henri Bonnet in By , more than 40 such organizations acted as links between the IIIC and the various scientific and cultural institutions around the world; their proposals and opinions were exchanged in a number of conferences. In April of , there were approximately , prisoners of war primarily in Russia awaiting repatriation under miserable conditions.

The Council of the League of Nations appointed Fridtjof Nansen, the famous Norwegian explorer and statesman, to investigate the situation and report back with his findings. Nansen, however, took initiative and organized the repatriation of the prisoners on his own. In less than two years, and despite a very limited budget, he and his assistants succeeded in sending home more than , prisoners of war from 26 countries at an average cost of only one pound sterling each.

At the same time, a similarly grave situation was arising. As a result of the Revolution, there were more than 1. These refugees had neither the right to claim any nationality nor the financial means to improve their situation. In , the League of Nations set up a Refugee Organization in order to deal with this problem, and Nansen was offered the post of High Commissioner, which he accepted. After the situation of the Russian refugees had been settled, Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek refugees from Turkey were requesting help from the League of Nations.

In order to reach a common policy and to stimulate the process of repatriation, Nansen convened a number of conferences. However, with the exception of the recognition of the Nansen Passport, which gave the refugees legal protection and was recognized by more than 50 States, the outcomes were small. Fridtjof Nansen served as the League of Nations first High Commissioner for Refugees from , helping hundreds of thousands of refugees to return home.

His efforts enabled many others to become legal residents and find work in the countries where they had found refuge. Nansen saw that one of the biggest problems facing refugees was the lack of internationally recognised identification papers. When famine broke out in Russia in , Nansen organised a relief programme for millions of its victims.

For his crucial work, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in The Office remained active throughout the war years, after which it became the International Refugee Organization, set up by the United Nations in Established in , the The UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award celebrates the legacy of Fridtjof Nansen by honouring individuals, groups and organizations who go above and beyond the call of duty to protect refugees, displaced and stateless people.

Although the League was not able to avoid the outbreak of World War Two , there were notable achievements and successes in the field of international technical cooperation. Powerful States such as Germany, Italy, and Japan left the organization, and by the time the Second World War broke out in , many had abandoned the League of Nations and its unfulfilled promise of collective security, and had instead returned to the traditional system of defensive alliances and power blocs.

At the end of the war, 43 States were still Members of the League of Nations, though for all intents and purposes it had ceased to exist. However, the formal termination of the organization was necessary. At the initiative of the British Foreign Office, the last Assembly the twenty-first was held in Geneva on 8 April Thus, having handed over all of its assets to the United Nations, and having granted the new Secretariat full control of its Library and archives, the 43 Members attending this last Assembly declared by unanimous vote that as of 20 April , the League of Nations would cease to exist.

Welcome to the United Nations. Topics Sustainable Development Goals. Gender Equality. Human Rights. Humanitarian Affairs. Peace negotiations. Breadcrumb Home History League of Nations. Related Info. League of Nations Covenant. League Treaties and Conventions. The Covenant of the League of Nations. Read the Covenant. Geneva, headquarters of the League of Nations. Palais des Nations History. Organization of the League The main bodies of the League of Nations.

League of Nations Treaty Series Read all treaties and conventions. The Locarno Agreement. The Geneva Protocol and Conference on Disarmament. Technical Activities The Mandate system. The protection of minorities. Transit, transport and communications.