Organisation of the League of Nations

"[3] The principal Sections of the Secretariat were: Political; Financial and Economics; Communications and Transit; Minorities and Administration (Saar and Danzig); Mandates; Disarmament; Health; Social (Opium and Traffic in Women and Children); Intellectual Cooperation and International Bureaux; Legal; and Information.

Each Section was responsible for all official secretarial work related to its particular subject and prepared and organized all meetings and conferences held in that connection.

Six states were admitted during the meetings and consequently were represented during the session (Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Finland and Luxembourg).

The Vice-presidents ex officio as Chairmen of the Committees were Arthur Balfour, British Empire; Tommaso Tittoni, Italy; Léon Bourgeois, France; Jose Maria Quiñones de León, Spain; Antonio Huneeus Gana, Chile; and Hjalmar Branting, Sweden.

The United States was meant to be the fifth permanent member, but the US Senate voted on 19 March 1920 against the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, thus preventing American participation in the League.

The Secretary General of the League, Sir Eric Drummond, was also present, and assisted in the preparation of the agenda and relevant documents.

The main issues discussed were: the status of Armenia, the protection of minorities in Turkey, the repatriation of prisoners of war in Siberia, and the question of Danzig.

The main issues discussed were: the Traffic in Women and Children, the question of Eupen and Malmedy, prevention of disease in Central Europe, the International Committee of Jurists, and the Prisoners in Siberia.

[13] 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.

[17] Many topics were addressed, for example ending leprosy, malaria, and yellow fever, the latter two by starting an international campaign to exterminate mosquitoes.

The works of the Economic Committee comprised the treatment of foreign nationals and enterprises, abolition of the prohibition and restrictions on imports and exports, unification of customs nomenclature, bill of exchange, unification of statistical methods, trade policy, veterinary medicines, international industrial agreements, problems of coal, sugar problems, issue of smuggling in general and alcohol, in particular, and indirect protectionism.

The conflict between the international political goals of the major powers and their views on economic welfare prevented from any concerted solution.

The introduction of mass production systems organised into assembly lines and based on standardised models, hugely contributed to the development of transport and communications.

The International Educational Cinematographic Institute was created in Roma after a proposal from the Italian government and placed under the League's supervision.

Although serving under a fascist government, it carried out considerable work promoting the peaceful ideal and the spirit of international cooperation.

The League subsequently appointed an Advisory Committee, and instructed the Secretariat to collect full information on the steps taken to apply the 1912 Convention.

[26] In 1931 the Assembly summoned a Conference that deliberated in favor of limiting the national manufacturing of narcotics as the only way to make sure that no margin was left for illicit traffic, this resulted in the adoption of another treaty (the "Limitation Convention") and another organ, the Drug Supervisory Body ("Organe de Contrôle") this time independent from the League, composed of four members and in charge of the collection of estimates on countries' production and trade in controlled drugs.

In 1932, in the league review of the convention implementation, appeared that cases of capture of free men still occurred in some areas, and that slave-markets existed in several countries.

The assembly decided therefore to appoint a permanent advisory committee to study the facts and the institutions related to slavery, and to consider means of eliminating them.

[30] The ACE conducted a major international investigation on slavery and slave trade, inspecting all the colonial empires and the territories under their control between 1934 and 1939.

A preparatory commission was initiated by the League in 1925; by 1931, there was sufficient support to hold a conference, which duly began under the chairmanship of former British Foreign Secretary Arthur Henderson.

The French, for their part, were equally insistent that German military inferiority was their only insurance from future conflict as serious as they had endured in the First World War.

As for the British and US governments, they were unprepared to offer the additional security commitments that France requested in exchange for limitation of French armaments.

The assembly resolved to consider how "the terms of the Equal Rights Treaty should be examined in relation to existing political, civil and economic status of women under the laws of countries around the world."

The Institute de Droit Comparé was enlisted to study women's franchise, access to educational facilities and similar questions.

Suzanne Bastid of France, professor of law at the University of Lyon; M. de Ruelle of Belgium, legal adviser for the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration; Mme.

Anka Godjevac of Yugoslavia, adviser of the Yugoslav delegation at the 1930 Codification Conference; Mr. H. C. Gutteridge of the United Kingdom, professor of comparative law at the University of Cambridge.

Kerstin Hesselgren of Sweden, member of the Second Chamber of the Swedish Riksdag and Rapporteur of the committee; Ms. Dorothy Kenyon of the United States, doctor of law, member of the New York Bar and legal adviser to a number of national organizations; M. Paul Sebasteyan of Hungary, counselor and head of the Treatise Division the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and Mr. McKinnon Wood of the United Kingdom who served as Secretariat of the committee.

The rapid advance of German armies in 1940 put pressure on the LON to transfer certain activities according to invitations by some government.

While the Secretary General stayed in Geneva to symbolize the League's continuity and Swiss neutrality, the main activities were located elsewhere.