LEAGUE OF NATIONS - OTHER BODIES

The League oversaw the Permanent Court of International Justice and several other agencies and commissions created to deal with pressing international problems. These included the Disarmament Commission, the Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, the Mandates Commission, the International Commission on Intellectual Cooperation (precursor to UNESCO), the Permanent Central Opium Board, the Commission for Refugees, and the Slavery Commission.
Several of these institutions were transferred to the United Nations after the Second World War; the International Labour Organization, the Permanent Court of International Justice (as the International Court of Justice), and the Health Organization (restructured as the World Health Organization) all became UN institutions.
The Permanent Court of International Justice was provided for by the Covenant, but not established by it. The Council and Assembly established its constitution. Its judges were elected by the Council and Assembly, and its budget was provided by the Assembly. The composition of the Court was of eleven judges and four deputy-judges, elected for nine years. The Court had been competent to hear and to determine any international dispute which the parties concerned submitted to it. The Court might also give an advisory opinion upon any dispute or question referred to it by the Council or the Assembly. The Court was open to all the nations of the world under certain broad conditions. Questions of fact as well as questions of law might be submitted.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) was created in 1919 on the basis of part XIII of the Treaty of Versailles and became part of the League's operations.
The ILO, although having the same Members as the League and subjected to the budget control of the Assembly, was an autonomous organisation with its own Governing Body, its own General Conference and its own Secretariat. Its constitution was different from that of the League: representation had been accorded not only to Governments but to representatives of employers and workers’ organisations.
Its first director was Albert Thomas. The ILO successfully restricted the addition of lead to paint, and convinced several countries to adopt an eight-hour work day and forty-eight hour working week. It also worked to end child labour, increase the rights of women in the workplace, and make shipowners liable for accidents involving seamen.The organization continued to exist after the end of the League, becoming an agency of the United Nations in 1946.
The League's health organization had three bodies, a Health Bureau, containing permanent officials of the League, an executive section the General Advisory Council or Conference consisting of medical experts, and a Health Committee. The Committee's purpose was to conduct inquiries, oversee the operation of the League's health work, and get work ready to be presented to the Council. This body focused on ending leprosy, malaria and yellow fever, the latter two by starting an international campaign to exterminate mosquitoes. The Health Organization also worked successfully with the government of the Soviet Union to prevent typhus epidemics including organising a large education campaign about the disease.

Committee of Intellectual Cooperation: The League of Nations had devoted serious attention to the question of international intellectual cooperation since its creation. The First Assembly (December 1920) recommended that the Council should take action aiming at international organisation of intellectual work. The Council adopted report presented by the Fifth Committee of the Second Assembly and invited a distinguished Committee on Intellectual Cooperation to meet in Geneva, August 1922.
The Programme of work of the Committee included: enquiry into the conditions of intellectual life, assistance to countries whose intellectual life was endangered, creation of National Committees for intellectual cooperation, cooperation with international intellectual organisations, protection of intellectual property, inter-university cooperation, coordination of bibliographical work and international interchange of publications, and international cooperation in archaeological research.
Permanent Central Opium Board: The League wanted to regulate the drug trade and established the Permanent Central Opium Board to supervise the statistical control system introduced by the second International Opium Convention that mediated the production, manufacture, trade and retail of opium and its by-products. The Board also established a system of import certificates and export authorizations for the legal international trade in narcotics.

The Slavery Commission sought to eradicate slavery and slave trading across the world, and fought forced prostitution. Its main success was through pressing the governments who administered mandated countries to end slavery in those countries. The League secured a commitment from Ethiopia to end slavery as a condition of membership in 1926, and worked with Liberia to abolish forced labour and inter-tribal slavery.
It succeeded in gaining the emancipation of 200,000 slaves in Sierra Leone and organized raids against slave traders in its efforts to stop the practice of forced labour in Africa. It also succeeded in reducing the death rate of workers constructing the Tanganyika railway from 55% to 4%. Records were kept to control slavery, prostitution, and the trafficking of women and children.
Commission for Refugees: Led by Fridtjof Nansen, the Commission for Refugees looked after the interests of refugees including overseeing their repatriation and, when necessary resettlement. At the end of the First World War there were two to three million ex-prisoners of war dispersed throughout Russia, within two years of the commission's foundation, in 1920, it had helped 425,000 of them return home. It established camps in Turkey in 1922 to aid the country with a refugee crisis it was dealing with, helping to prevent disease and hunger. It also established the Nansen passport as a means of identification for stateless peoples.
The Committee for the Study of the Legal Status of Women sought to make an inquiry into the status of women all over the world. It was formed in April 1938, and dissolved in early 1939. Committee members included Mme. P. Bastid (France), M. de Ruelle (Belgium), Mme. Anka Godjevac (Yugoslavia), Mr. H. C. Gutteridge (Great Britain), Mlle. Kerstin Hesselgren (Sweden), Ms. Dorothy Kenyon (United States), M. Paul Sebastyen (Hungary) and Secretariat Mr. Hugh McKinnon Wood (Great Britain).
Mandate System: A League of Nations mandate refers to a legal status for certain territories transferred from the control of one country to another following World War I, or the legal instruments that contained the terms for administering the territory on behalf of the League. These were of the nature of a treaty or convention and contained minority rights clauses that provided for the right of petition and adjudication by the International Court. The mandate system was established under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, entered into on 28 June 1919.
All the territories subject to League of Nations mandates were previously controlled by states defeated in World War I, principally Imperial Germany and the Ottoman Empire. The mandates were fundamentally different from the protectorates in that the Mandatory power undertook obligations to the inhabitants of the territory and to the League of Nations.

he exact level of control by the Mandatory power over each mandate was decided on an individual basis by the League of Nations. However, in every case the Mandatory power was forbidden to construct fortifications or raise an army within the territory of the mandate and was required to present an annual report on the territory to the League of Nations. Despite this, mandates were generally seen as de facto colonies of the empires of the victor nations. The mandates were divided into three distinct groups based upon the level of development each population had achieved at that time.
The first group or Class A mandates were communities formerly controlled by the Ottoman Empire that were deemed to "... have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory."
  • 'Mesopotamia' (United Kingdom), 10 August 1920–3 October 1932, which became the independent kingdom of Iraq.
  • 'Palestine' (United Kingdom), from 25 April 1920 (effective 29 September 1923–15 May 1948). In April 1921, 'Transjordan' was incorporated as an autonomous area under the mandate. It eventually became the independent Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan (later Jordan) on 22 March 1946. Following the termination of the remainder of the Palestine mandate, most of the territory became part of the State of Israel, other parts, until 1967, forming the West Bank of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and small slivers of territory east and south of the Sea of Galilee held by Syria.
  • 'Syria' (France), 29 September 1923–1 January 1944, including 'Lebanon'; Hatay (a former Ottoman Alexandretta sandjak) broke away from it and became a French protectorate, until it was ceded to the new Republic of Turkey. Following the termination of the French mandate, two separate independent republics were formed, Syria and Lebanon
The second group or Class B mandates were all former Schutzgebiete (German territories) in the Sub-Saharan regions of West and Central Africa, which were deemed to require a greater level of control by the mandatory power: "...the Mandatory must be responsible for the administration of the territory under conditions which will guarantee freedom of conscience and religion." The mandatory power was forbidden to construct military or naval bases within the mandates.
  • Ruanda-Urundi (Belgium), formerly two separate German protectorates, joined as a single mandate from 20 July 1922, but 1 March 1926–30 June 1960 in administrative union with the colony Belgian Congo. After 13 December 1946, this was a United Nations Trust Territory (till the separate independence of Rwanda and Burundi on 1 July 1962)
  • Tanganyika (United Kingdom) from 20 July 1922, 11 December 1946 made a United Nations trust territory; from 1 May 1961 enjoyed self-rule, on 9 December 1961 independence (as dominion), on 9 December 1962 a Republic, in 1964 federated with Zanzibar, and soon renamed together Tanzania
and two former German territories, each split in a British and a French League of Nations mandated territory, according to earlier military occupation zones:
  • Kamerun was split on 20 July 1922 into British Cameroons (under a Resident) and French Cameroun (under a Commissioner until 27 August 1940, then under a Governor), on 13 December 1946 transformed into United Nations Trust Territories, again a British (successively under senior district officers officiating as Resident, a Special Resident and Commissioners) and a French Trust (under a Haut Commissaire)
  • the former German colony of Togoland was split in British Togoland (under an Administrator, a post filled by the colonial Governor of the British Gold Coast (present Ghana) except 30 September 1920–11 October 1923 Francis Walter Fillon Jackson) and French Togoland (under a Commissioner) (United Kingdom and France), 20 July 1922 separate Mandates, transformed on 13 December 1946 into United Nations trust territories, French Togo Associated Territory (under a Commissioner till 30 August 1956, then under a High Commissioner as Autonomous Republic of Togo) and British Togoland (as before; on 13 December 1956 it ceased to exist as it became part of Ghana)
A final group, the Class C mandates, including South-West Africa and certain of the South Pacific Islands, were considered to be "best administered under the laws of the Mandatory as integral portions of its territory"
  • former German New Guinea became the Territory of New Guinea (Australia) from 17 December 1920 under a (at first Military) Administrator; after (wartime) Japanese/U.S. military commands from 8 December 1946 under UN mandate as North East New Guinea (under Australia, as administrative unit), until it became part of present Papua New Guinea at independence in 1975
  • Nauru, formerly part of German New Guinea (Australia in effective control, formally together with United Kingdom and New Zealand) from 17 December 1920, 1 November 1947 made into a United Nations trust territory (same three powers) until its 31 January 1968 independence as a Republic - all that time under an Administrator
  • former German Samoa (New Zealand) 17 December 1920 a League of Nations mandate, renamed Western Samoa (as opposed to American Samoa), from 25 January 1947 a United Nations trust territory until its 1 January 1962 independence
  • South Pacific Mandate (Japan)
  • South-West Africa (South Africa)
Rules of establishment: According to the Council of the League of Nations, meeting of August 1920: "draft mandates adopted by the Allied and Associated Powers would not be definitive until they had been considered and approved by the League ... the legal title held by the mandatory Power must be a double one: one conferred by the Principal Powers and the other conferred by the League of Nations,"
Three steps were required to establish a Mandate under international law:
(1) The Principal Allied and Associated Powers confer a mandate on one of their number or on a third power
(2) the principal powers officially notify the council of the League of Nations that a certain power has been appointed mandatory for such a certain defined territory
(3) the council of the League of Nations takes official cognisance of the appointment of the mandatory power and informs the latter that it [the council] considers it as invested with the mandate, and at the same time notifies it of the terms of the mandate, after assertaining whether they are in conformance with the provisions of the covenant.
  1. French Mandate of Syria
  2. French Mandate of Lebanon
  3. British Mandate of Palestine
  4. British Mandate of Transjordan
  5. British Mandate of Iraq
  6. British Togoland
  7. French Togoland
  8. British Cameroon
  9. French Cameroon
  10. Ruanda-Urundi
  11. Tanganyika
  12. South-West Africa
  1. Japanese Mandate of the Pacific Islands
  2. Australian Mandate of New Guinea
  3. British Mandate of Nauru
  4. New Zealand's mandate of Western Samoa
Source: Wikipedia March 2010
 
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