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Droesse, Gerd
2020.
Membership in International Organizations.
p.
11.
Article contents
Some Problems of Article XXIV of the Covenant1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
Extract
The majority of the early schemes for a general international organization, or League of Nations, before the Covenant envisaged its functions as principally negative—chiefly the general function of preventing war by peaceful settlement of international disputes. Little or no attention was paid before the Covenant to potentialities of positive and coördinated international action. This is all the more remarkable in view of the growing number of spheres to which international action had already been extended. Apart from Schücking and Mr. L. Woolf, only the proposals of the triumvirate of the “Union des Associations Internationales,” M. Fried, M. Paul Otlet, and M. La Fontaine, seriously urged the necessity of rational coördination and positive coöperation. Unfortunately, before the war these proposals failed to receive the serious attention which they merited. The object of the Union was well founded. Already by 1914, there existed over twenty “public unions” and nearly 150 “private associations;” while the growth in the number of international conferences revealed the volume of international activity. Moreover, the dispersion of this activity and the lack of coördination had led to unfortunate overlapping. Three active organizations were occupied with the international regulation of railways, and two with agriculture. The scientific unions worked independently of any comprehensive plan.
But the absence of coördination was not the only weakness apparent in the pre-war situation. The independence of each organization and the lack of a central authority increased the difficulties of working. Elaborate negotiations necessarily preceded the summoning of an international conference, even though the conventional constitution provided for periodic but regular meetings. Further, with the exception of one or two of the most powerful unions, the force of the influence which could be brought to bear on governments was weakened by the isolation.of each union. Finally, the absence of a collective political authority often barred the way to progress in international technical organization.
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Footnotes
1
Article 24 (International Bureaus):
1. There shall be placed under the direction of the League all international bureaus already established by general treaties if the parties to such treaties consent. All such international bureaus and all commissions for the regulation of matters of international interest hereafter constituted shall be placed under the direction of the League.
2. In all matters of international interest which are regulated by general conventions but which are not placed under the control of international bureaus or commissions, the Secretariat of the League shall, subject to the consent of the Council and if desired by the parties, collect and distribute all relevant information, and shall render any other assistance which may be necessary or desirable.
3. The Council may include as part of the expenses of the Secretariat the expenses ofany bureau or commission which is placed under the direction of the League.
References
2 Schücking, Staatenverbande der Haager Conferenzen.
3 L. S. Woolf, International Government. Two reports prepared for the Fabian Research Department.
4 See publications of l'Union des Associations Internationales, Brussels, passim.
5 The Central Office for International Railway Freight Transport; the Conference on Technical Uniformity on Railways (both official organizations); and theInternational Association of the Railway Congress—a non-official union to which over 400 railway administrations adhered.
6 The International Institute of Agriculture in Rome, a governmental organization, and the International Commission of Agriculture in Paris, a private union of national agricultural associations.
7 The International Geodetic Association at Potsdam, the Seismological Union at St. Petersburg, and the Permanent Council for the Exploration of the Sea at Copenhagen, all official unions, appear to have worked independently of one another, although their respective functions called for systematic coöperation. The rearrangement of the international organization for scientific work which took place after the Great Warappears to corroborate this. A series of allied international conferences held in Paris and London in 1918 and in Brussels in 1919 established the International Research Council to coördinate international activities in the various branches of science, among them the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, Section B of which has superseded theformer Seismological Union. It should be noted that the central organization and its branches are non-official, in contrast with the pre-war unions mentioned above.
8 See Schücking, op. cit.
9 Preamble and Articles 23 and 25 of the Covenant.
10 For text, see Interim Report of the Phillimore Committee, printed as Appendix D in Florence Wilson, The Origins of the League Covenant.
11 For text, see Miller, D. H., The Drafting of the Covenant, Vol. II, Document 2Google Scholar.
12 J. C. Smuts, The League of Nations; a Practical Suggestion.
13 For text, see Miller, D. H., The Drafting of the Covenant, Vol. II, Document 6Google Scholar.
14 For text, see D. H. Miller, op. cit., Document 7. The document is sometimes called Wilson's first Paris draft of January 10, 1919.
15 Ibid., Document 9. The document is sometimes called Wilson's second Paris draft of January 20, 1919.
16 Ibid., Document 10.
17 Ibid., Document 12.
18 Ibid., Vol. I, Chap. 6.
19 For text, see D. H. Miller, op. cit., Vol. II, Document 14. The document is sometimes known as Wilson's third Paris draft.
20 For text, see Appendix H in Florence Wilson, The Origins of the League Covenant.
21 For text, see Appendix I in Florence Wilson, op. cit., especially Arts. 8 and 9.
22 It is pointed out in Schücking and Wehberg, Die Satzung des Völkerbundes, that a great part of Article 24 took shape only between February 14 and April 28, 1919.
23 In the text of June 28,1919, in Paragraph 1, and sentence 2, the words “Tous autres bureaux internationaux” replace “Il en sera de même de tous autres bureaux internationaux;” and in Paragraph 2 the word “desirable” replaces “utile.” See Schücking and Wehberg, op. cit., p. 757.
24 It should be noted that the drafts for a League of Nations prepared by the German International Law Association (Art. 36) and by the German Government (Art. 19-22) contained proposals similar to Article 24. See Schücking and Wehberg, op. cit., p. 757.
25 Broadly, the international conventions connected with the organization of communications and commerce were revived, while those relating to international scientific activity were omitted from the list.
26 See Neumeyer, K., in Revue de Droit International, April-June, 1924Google Scholar, for a discussion of this question.
27 E.g., International Commission for Air Navigation. Treaty Series (1922), No. 2.
28 See below, p. 415.
29 League of Nations Official Journal, August, 1923, p. 858Google Scholar.
30 Parliamentary Papers, Misc., No. 2. (1912).
31 Marten, , N.R.G., 3rd Series, VII, p. 266Google Scholar.
32 Treaty Series (1910), No. 21.
33 For the convention of 1910, see Martens, N.R.G., 3rd Series, VII, p. 252Google Scholar.
34 Cf. the system of apportioning the expenses of the League among the statesmembers, modelled upon that of the Universal Postal Union, with the voluntary method adopted by the International Institute of Agriculture.
35 See Minutes of the Thirteenth Session of the Council, p. 54 and Annex 225.
36 See Records of 4th Session of Assembly, Plenary Meeting, p. 320.
37 See Minutes of the Twenty-Fifth Session of the Council, pp. 858 and 954.
38 Until the resolution of the Council in its 25th session, there was nothing to exclude optional requests for affiliation under Article 24 from non-official bureaus. Requests were actually received from several such organizations, notably the International Institute of Commerce, the International Commission on Agriculture, and the International Bureau for Information and Enquiries regarding Belief to Foreigners. Moreover, the last-named was placed under the League's direction by a resolution of the Council of June 27, 1921. See Minutes of the Thirteenth Session of the Council, Appendix 225.
39 In view of the limited membership of a number of organizations which, nevertheless, pursue objects of a recognized international interest, the criterionof function is more generally applicable than that of membership.
40 Article 20, Paragraph 1, of the Covenant of the League of Nations states that “the members of the League severally agree that this Covenant is accepted as abrogating all obligations or understandings inter se which are inconsistent with the terms thereof, and solemnly undertake that they will not hereafter enter into anyengagements inconsistent with the terms thereof.”
41 Treaty Series (1919), No. 19. The Convention of St. Germain replaced the abrogated Berlin Act of 1878. Placed under the direction of the League of Nations by the resolution of the Council of January 11, 1922.
42 Treaty Series (1922), No. 2. Placed under the direction of the League of Nations by the resolution of the 4th session of the Assembly. See Records of 4th Assembly, Plenary, p. 275.
43 Placed under the direction of the League by a resolution of the Council, October 2, 1921. See Official Journal, December, 1921, p. 1166Google Scholar.
44 This must not be confused with the International Belief Union tobe created under the Geneva Convention of July 12, 1927, which is not yet in force. See Official Journal, VIII (1927), p. 997Google Scholar.
45 E.g., the International River Commissions maintain close contactwith the Communications and Transit Section of the League. The Universal Postal Union and the non-official International Criminal Police Commission both lend invaluable aid to the opium organization.
46 E.g., in 1924 the Secretariat took over the work of the International Bureau for the Protection of Children, which had requested to be placed under the League's “direction” in 1921.
47 L.N., Treaty Series, VIII, p. 66Google Scholar.
48 See Official Journal, Records of Tenth Session of the Assembly, Minutes of Second Committee, p. 59, for the discussion of the resolution of the Norwegian and other delegations requesting the application of Article 24 to the Bank. Theresolution was withdrawn in the face of opposition.
49 Publications of the League of Nations, XII. B. International Bureaus, 1928, XII. B. IGoogle Scholar.
50 By the conventions of the Universal Postal Union, the International Telegraphic and Radiotelegraphic Unions, the International Railway Transport Union, and the Union for the Protection of Artistic and Literary Property, and of Industrial and Scientific Property, the Swiss federal government, through its appropriate departments, is appointed to supervise the work of the bureaus established under these conventions.
51 The Communications and Transit Section of the League of Nations, the Central Office for International Railway Freight Transport (both official organizations); the Federal Council of Switzerland, which is responsible for summoning regular conferences on Technical Uniformity on Railways and the European Time-table; and the International Railway Union and the International Railway Congress Associations—both non-official.
52 See Universal Postal Union, Convention of London, 1929, Article 1.
53 The rules of eligibility especially demand reconsideration. According to on view, the Council, in limiting the application of Paragraph 1 to bureaus or commissions established under general international conventions, has disregarded the intentions of the authors of the Covenant. The strict exclusion of the large number of international unions not established by a diplomatically-concluded general convention, but whose status may be described as semi-public in view of the interest and aid lent to their activities by governments or administrations, in no way helps to establish the League as the apex of international coöperation. The distinction between public and private organizations, upon which legal formality still insists, has pragmatically broken down. Rigid insistence on an outworn principle must prejudicially affect the fulfillment of the purpose of Article 24. Similarly, strict rules requiring that the governing body of a bureau should be composed of a large majority of official representatives are to be condemned. It may be presumed that the effective collaboration of a group of governments with a number of authoritative private organizations for an object of international interest approved by the Council would be a sufficient guarantee for the latter body, even though the governing body of the union were composed mainly of the delegates of the private organizations.
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