The United States and the Permanent Court of International Justice

1923 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-437
Author(s):  
Eugène Borel

From the day on which the United States of America declared that it would not become a party to the League of Nations, the thoughts of many people have naturally turned to the situation created by this abstention, the seriousness of which was necessarily clear to everyone.Some think that the matter should be taken lightly. In their opinion the attitude of the United States can only be transitory and at some future time, which may, however, be still far distant, the country will modify its decision and make up its mind to occupy the place reserved for it in the League of Nations. Others allow themselves to be misguided by a different hope. According to them the League of Nations cannot live and will sooner or later disappear to make place for another grouping of nations which would win the approval and adhesion of the American Republic. Between these extreme views there lie the proposals of those who seek relief in the present situation, basing their expectations either upon such a revision of the Covenant as would satisfy the United States or upon the creation of a world association which would join the United States, the present League of Nations and other states not yet belonging thereto into one great group.

1931 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manley O. Hudson

Various changes in the organization of the Permanent Court of International Justice, particularly in the arrangements for its sessions, were envisaged in the amendments to the Statute of the Court annexed to the Protocol for the Revision of the Statute, of September 14, 1929. This protocol failed to come into force in September, 1930, as planned. While it may yet come into force, that event may be postponed for several years. It would seem to require ratification by each of the forty-five states which have ratified the Protocol of Signature of December 16, 1920, as well as ratification by the United States of America. Only thirty-five states members of the League of Nations have now (May 1, 1931) ratified the protocol of September 14, 1929, and it may prove to be a difficult task to persuade the remaining eleven states to ratify promptly. Meanwhile, it has seemed desirable that the court itself should revise its rules in the direction of some of the changes which would have been effected by the amendments to the statute.


Author(s):  
Charlie Laderman

Although the League of Nations was the first permanent organization established with the purpose of maintaining international peace, it built on the work of a series of 19th-century intergovernmental institutions. The destructiveness of World War I led American and British statesmen to champion a league as a means of maintaining postwar global order. In the United States, Woodrow Wilson followed his predecessors, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, in advocating American membership of an international peace league, although Wilson’s vision for reforming global affairs was more radical. In Britain, public opinion had begun to coalesce in favor of a league from the outset of the war, though David Lloyd George and many of his Cabinet colleagues were initially skeptical of its benefits. However, Lloyd George was determined to establish an alliance with the United States and warmed to the league idea when Jan Christian Smuts presented a blueprint for an organization that served that end. The creation of the League was a predominantly British and American affair. Yet Wilson was unable to convince Americans to commit themselves to membership in the new organization. The Franco-British-dominated League enjoyed some early successes. Its high point was reached when Europe was infused with the “Spirit of Locarno” in the mid-1920s and the United States played an economically crucial, if politically constrained, role in advancing Continental peace. This tenuous basis for international order collapsed as a result of the economic chaos of the early 1930s, as the League proved incapable of containing the ambitions of revisionist powers in Europe and Asia. Despite its ultimate limitations as a peacekeeping body, recent scholarship has emphasized the League’s relative successes in stabilizing new states, safeguarding minorities, managing the evolution of colonies into notionally sovereign states, and policing transnational trafficking; in doing so, it paved the way for the creation of the United Nations.


1933 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-259
Author(s):  
Howard B. Calderwood

The guarantee clause of the Polish Minorities Treaty, which is the model for the treaties signed by eight other states, is as follows: “Poland agrees that the stipulations in the foregoing articles, so far as they affect persons belonging to racial, religious, or linguistic minorities, constitute obligations of international concern and shall be placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations. They shall not be modified without the assent of a majority of the Council of the League of Nations. The United States, British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan agree not to withhold their assent from any modification in these articles which is in due form assented to by a majority of the Council of the League of Nations. Poland agrees that any member of the Council of the League of Nations shall have the right to bring to the attention of the Council any infraction, or danger of infraction, of any of these obligations, and the Council may thereupon take such action and give such direction as it may deem proper and effective in the circumstances. Poland further agrees that any difference of opinion as to questions of law or fact arising out of these articles between the Polish government and any one of the principal Allied and Associated Powers or any other Power, a member of the Council of the League of Nations, shall be held to be a dispute of an international character under Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. The Polish government hereby consents that any such dispute shall, if the other party thereto demands, be referred to the Permanent Court of International Justice. The decisions of the Permanent Court shall be final, and shall have the same force and effect as an award under Article 13 of the Covenant.”


2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
PATRICIA CLAVIN ◽  
JENS-WILHELM WESSEL

This article explores the work of the little-studied Economic and Financial Organisation of the League of Nations. It offers a sustained investigation into how this international organisation operated that assesses the transnational aspects of its work in relation to its inter-governmental responsibilities, and demonstrates the wide-ranging contribution of the organisation's secretariat. The second part of the article establishes the way in which transnationalism enabled the United States, the League's most influential non-member, to play a crucial role in shaping the policy agenda of the League. It also shows how a growing sense of frustration in its work prompted EFO to attempt to free itself from inter-governmental oversight and become an independent organisation to promote economic and financial co-operation in 1940 – a full four years before the creation of the Bretton Woods agreements.


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