Short for LN by Abbreviationfinder.org, League of Nations, French Société des Nations [s ɔ sje te ː de na sj ɔ ], English League of Nations [li ː g əv ne ɪ ʃ nz], 1920-46, an international organization dedicated to safeguarding world peace; The seat was in Geneva.
Organization
The highest body was the Federal Assembly (BV), in which each member had one vote. This elected the League of Nations (People’s Council), which consisted of permanent and non-permanent members (elected annually by the BV). At the start of its work, the People’s Council had four permanent members (France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan) and four non-permanent members; Changes in the number of members arose from the political history of the League of Nations; the BV met once, the People’s Council several times a year. That of a general secretary (1919–33 James Eric Drummond, Earl of Perth, * 1876, † 1951); 1933–46 Joseph Avenol, * 1879, † 1952) The Permanent Secretariat, headed from 1936 and residing in the League of Nations Palace, supported the work of the BV and the League of Nations Council. Several commissions served the tasks of the League of Nations. The Permanent International Court of Justice and the International Labor Organization (ILO) were closely related to the League of Nations, but were not direct organs of the League of Nations.
Goals
The main concern of the League of Nations was to promote cooperation among nations and to ensure international peace and security ( peacekeeping, collective security). The members were obliged to resolve their disputes peacefully and, in the event of disagreement, to appeal to the People’s Council, which could propose a solution without the votes of the conflicting parties, which, if unanimous, would be binding on both parties. The League of Nations was not allowed to intervene in the internal affairs of its members.
History
In 1918 the American President T. W. Wilson suggested in his Fourteen Points the formation of a world organization to guarantee political independence and territorial integrity. The formation of the League of Nations was decided at the Paris Peace Conference on February 14, 1919; its statutes (League of Nations) of April 28, 1919 came into force on January 10, 1920 as part of the Treaty of Versailles. The victorious powers of World War I played a leading role in the League of Nations, with the exception of the United States, which stayed away after the Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles in March 1920. The League of Nations was involved in the implementation of the Paris suburb treaties, including when drawing borders (e.g. Upper Silesia), with the supervision of the Free City of Danzig and the administration of the Saar area (Saarland, history). He assigned the former German colonies and the Near East areas of the Ottoman Empire as mandate areas, tried (often successfully) to the peaceful settlement of conflicts (Åland Islands, Mosul Treaty) and campaigned for the protection of national minorities. He developed an extensive activity in refugee aid ( Nansenpass). In order to preserve the European state system created by the Parisian treaties, the League of Nations granted the Republic of Austria financial aid under strict conditions in the Geneva Protocols in 1922 (Austria, history). The Franco-German policy of détente pursued by Foreign Ministers A. Briand and G. Stresemann brought the League of Nations’ prestige to a climax with the Locarno Accords (1925); Germany joined him in 1926 and received a seat on the People’s Council as a permanent member.
The failure of the disarmament negotiations begun in Geneva in 1932 (Geneva Disarmament Conference, Geneva Conferences) and the inability of the League of Nations to effectively counter the aggressive expansionist policies, especially of Japan, Germany and Italy, diminished the international reputation of the League of Nations in the 1930s. The accession of new states (including Mexico in 1931, Turkey in 1932, USSR in 1934) did not outweigh the loss of influence that the League of Nations suffered from the departure of states that were important for détente: Japan left in 1933 because the League of Nations carried out the occupation of Manchuria (1931) had disapproved of Japanese troops. In the same year Germany left the Geneva Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations; In 1935, the League of Nations condemned Germany’s unilateral defection from the arms restrictions of the Versailles Treaty as a breach of treaty. League of Nations sanctions (including arms embargo, Credit and raw material freeze) against Italy (October 1935 to July 1936) because of its attack on Ethiopia had no effect; In 1937 Italy left the League of Nations. The remilitarization of the Rhineland (March 1936), the “Anschluss” of Austria (March 1938) and the defeat of Czechoslovakia (1938/39) by the German Reich, as well as the German attack on Poland (September 1, 1939) proved the growing ineffectiveness of the League of Nations. During World War II, the League of Nations excluded the USSR because of its attack on Finland in December 1939. At a meeting from April 8 to 18, 1946, he transferred his duties to the United Nations.
