Hoping to break with the system of alliances and secret diplomacy which was held responsible for the cataclysm of , the American president Woodrow Wilson placed the creation of the League of Nations at the top of the agenda during the Peace Conference, in order to base the preservation of peace on new practices.
However, the means at the disposal of the League to enforce this commitment were rather limited. The Covenant stipulated that any dispute should be submitted to arbitration or to consideration by the Council of the League, but if the Council could not unanimously identify the aggressor, each member state recovered its freedom of action.
Far removed from the French plans for a strong League of Nations with a permanent international military staff, the Covenant of the League thus mainly reflected Anglo-American plans, which emphasised the public nature of the proceedings and the moral pressure of public opinion to prevent conflict. However, this Protocol ultimately failed owing to the refusal of the British Conservatives, now back in power, to ratify it. The collective security system experienced resounding failures in the s, showing itself incapable of guaranteeing the protections of Article 10 to those members threatened by the aggressive policies of dictatorial regimes.
It proved unable in , for instance, to prevent the conquest of Manchuria by Japan, a permanent member of the Council of the League which withdrew in when condemned by the Geneva-based institution. In the League was brought into disrepute through the aggression of Italy against Ethiopia, a member of the League since under the pressure of the small and medium powers, France and Britain resigned themselves to implementing Article 16 of the Covenant, but the economic sanctions voted against Italy proved ineffective due to the neutrality of the United States and the fact that oil and other strategic products were not subject to the embargo.
The principle of collective security was nevertheless adopted once more by the United Nations, established by the San Francisco Charter on 26 June Abstract This article tests the assumption that in institutional and legal design the League of Nations was incapable of providing collective security.
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Add comment Cancel. Submit a comment. Comment title. You have entered an invalid code. Submit Cancel. Thank you for submitting a comment on this article. Your comment will be reviewed and published at the journal's discretion. However, the Great Powers were often reluctant to do so. Sanctions could hurt League members, so they were reluctant to comply.
After a number of notable successes and some early failures in the s, the League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis powers in the s.
Germany withdrew from the League, as did Japan, Italy, Spain, and others. The onset of the Second World War showed that the League had failed its primary purpose to prevent any future world war. The League lasted for 26 years; the United Nations UN replaced it after the end of the Second World War in April and inherited a number of agencies and organizations founded by the League.
House to draft a U. The two principal rchitects of the covenant of the League of Nations were Lord Robert Cecil a lawyer and diplomat and Jan Smuts a Commonwealth statesman. He also proposed the creation of a mandate system for captured colonies of the Central Powers during the war.
Cecil focused on the administrative side and proposed annual Council meetings and quadrennial meetings for the Assembly of all members. After lengthy negotiations between the delegates, the Hurst-Miller draft was finally produced as a basis for the Covenant.
After more negotiation and compromise, the delegates finally approved of the proposal to create the League of Nations on January 25, On June 28, 44 states signed the Covenant, including 31 states that took part in the war on the side of the Triple Entente or joined it during the conflict.
The League would consist of a General Assembly representing all member states , an Executive Council with membership limited to major powers , and a permanent secretariat. Opposition in the Senate, particularly from two Republican politicians, Henry Cabot Lodge and William Borah, and especially in regard to Article X of the Covenant, ensured that the United States would not ratify the agreement.
Their objections were based on the fact that by ratifying such a document, the United States would be bound by international contract to defend a League of Nations member if it was attacked. They believed that it was best not to become involved in international conflicts. The League held its first council meeting in Paris on January 16, , six days after the Versailles Treaty and the Covenant of the League of Nations came into force.
On November 1, the headquarters of the League was moved from London to Geneva, where the first General Assembly was held on November
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