League of nations

 

Origins

After ww1, the league was set up because no country wanted such an event to occur again. President Wilson First  proposed the league of nations in his Fourteen Points Plan for peace in Europe and in 1914, just after the end of ww1, the league was formed. By 1920, the league was formed, however the american people wanted no part in european affairs and so America was not a member of the league.

 

Aims

The purpose the league of nations was to keep peace between the european countries.

Inorder to do this , every member promised:

1. That they would settle disputes between nations with negotiations rather than war.
2. Try to help a member country who is being attacked by stopping the aggressor. They did this by:
1. Publicly shaming the aggressor so that they felt bad and stopped.
2. Imposing economic sanctions such as stopping trade in order to force the aggressor to stop the conflict.
3. Join forces with other nations and take military action against the aggressor.

Organisation of the league

 

The assembly: The group of people representing all the countries, who meet annually to discuss and vote upon things. Each member had one vote.

 

The international court of justice : A court of judges from 15 countries, who settles disputes between countries upon request from one of the involved countries.

 

The council: A group of nations who dealt with emergencies. An unanimous vote was needed for a decision to be passed.

 

The secretariat: The people that controlled the running of the league of nations. They created all the documents needed.

 

Agencies and Commission: Different smaller organizations that handled smaller problems. For example helping or organizing  workers, minorities and mandates.

 

Weaknesses of the league

Did not have all the most powerful nations

• USA was the most powerful country in the world who had the potential to enforce laws but yet they weren’t part of the league of nations.
• Nor was germany, austria and the ussr. All powerful nations. This meant that they couldn’t control the countries if they were not part of the league.

Couldn’t enforce peace

• The league could help solve problems with smaller countries. But Britain and France weren’t willing to actually take part in war and they didn’t have support of the US, which meant the threat of war was not enforced.

No decisions could be passed

• Unless all countries agreed upon an idea then they wouldn’t actually do anything. This meant that in reality nothing would actually ever get done because on the more serious topic they could never come to an unanimous agreement

Successes and weaknesses of the league

Success: Aaland islands

In 1921, two countries Finland and Sweden had a dispute over who was the rightful owner of the aland islands which were located between the two countries. The inhabitants of the island were swedish speaking and the majority of people wanted the island to be ruled by sweden. They could not settle the dispute, and so they referred it to the League of Nations.

 

It was successful, because the league of nations was able to settle the dispute by giving the land to finland however protecting their right to continue to speak swedish and keep other swedish cultures. This was agreed by both countries.

Failure:Corfu

In August 1923, an italian general was killed while working on mapping the border between greece and albania for the league of nations. This created a lot of problems because then italy wanted compensation for the death, but greece refused to pay it. Italy then bombarded and took over corfu, until greece agreed to pay compensation. League of nations then stepped in and condemned mussolini for his actions and told greece to give money to the league.

 

This was unsuccessful because mussolini simply refused and the league was too scared of starting a conflict with italy that they did not enforce any threats. Instead they asked greece to apologize and pay the money to Italy. They did this and only then did they give corfu back to the greeks. This showed that the league of nations did not really pose any threat and countries didn’t have to agree to their rules.

 

How did the league collapse?

 

Countries failed to disarm

There was  a disarmament conference in 1932-3, organized by the league of nations. Over 60 countries came with representatives to discuss how all the countries may disarm in order to reduce the chance of war. However france refused to reduce , so germany refused also and left the league to rearm.

Countries started being more aggressive

The leaders of italy, germany and japan. Wanted to fix problems which were happening at home by being aggressive to other countries by taking their land in order to gain more territory and increase national pride.

 

Decisive contribution	Important contribution.	Little contribution
The league of nations - it directly helped prevent actual military conflicts, like between sweden and finland and made countries fear even starting a military conflict if they were a small country.	The kellogg-Briand pact, this helped make many countries sign up to be against war, and helped make countries strive for peace. It couldn’t prevent ww2, but has helped prevent wars after.	The locarno treaties - This gave a spirit of peace to countries which would’ve helped dramatically with improving the political climate.
	The dawes plan helped prevent conflict between france and germany by making the french troops leave the ruhr area, it also helped boost german economy which could make them less likely to need to attack.	The young plan - This was meant to help make the economic problems a little less hard for germany so that they didn’t start a war but obviously that failed.

UN

 

The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945, after the end of world war 2, in attempt to rebrand the league of nations.  It is currently made up of 193 Member States. The mission and work of the United Nations are guided by the purposes and principles contained in its founding Charter.

 

Atlantic Charter: This was a joint declaration known as the Atlantic Charter made by the United Kingdom and the US, which defined the goals of a post war country in order to keep peace

 

Main organs of the UN

Organ of UN	What are they responsible for?	How do they function?
General assembly	Responsible for making policy , discussing issues and representing countries	They hold a general debate each year, where all 193 members can vote on decisions. Important ones such those to with peace, budgets or member admission require a two thirds vote. Each member country has one vote.
Security council	Responsible for keeping international security and peace. Decide if countries are acting aggressively or threatening the peace.	There are 15 members, which each have one vote. They help settle disputes between countries by deciding who is in the fair. They can propose economic sanctions or military action in order to keep peace if necessary
Economic and Social Council	Responsible for anything to do with economic,social or environmental factors. They also try to implement the millennium development goals	They have 54 members who can reflect debate and present innovate thinking.
International Court of Justice	Responsible for settling legal disputes on the basis of international law
Secretariat	Responsible for the administration and non-diplomatic work. The UN peacekeepers are also part of this group.	There are tens of thousands of international UN members who carry out the work as commanded by the general assembly and the other organs. The chief in command in is the Secretary-general who makes sure everything works as it should.

The UN ‘peacekeepers’

Who are they?

The ‘Peacekeepers ‘, otherwise known as blue helmets are the military personnel of the UN, consisting of 90,000 members, from over 120 countries, with the majority coming from African and Asian countries. The UN ‘peacekeepers’ were first deployed in 1948 to monitor the arab armistice

What do they do?

They work alongside the UN police in order to promote stability, security and peace processes. They can be called upon to protect civilians and UN Personnel, monitor a disputed border, monitor and observe peace processes.  

When the call is given they will group together a force, with appropriate skills and can deploy the equipment and weapons in the area within 6 months.

 

Darfur genocide

 

Glossary:

 

Sudan	Country in which darfur is part of
Militia	a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency.
Genocide	Acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national ethnical, racial, or religious group
Refugees	Displaced people
DPA	Darfur peace Agreement
SLM	Sudanese Liberian Movement
JEM	Justice eality movement
UNAUM	United Nations African Union Missiob

What is it

The mass slaughtering of men and women in Darfur.

The Sudanese government likes Arabs as the president is Arabic and thus they are against non-arabs.

The government funded arabs are called the janjaweed, while those being killed in Darfur are the non-Arabs.

Janjaweeds systematically kill people by burning the villages, looting mudering and raping the villagers. Since 2003 480,000 have been killed and 2.3 million have been displaced

 

Where

Darfur is a western province of Sudan, roughly the size of France. It is above uganda and below Egypt.

The population of Darfur is estimated at 7 million.

 

When

 

After gaining independence from Britain in 1956, two long civil wars in Sudan began. These civil wars had alot of reasons like economics, politics but also predominately because of the scarce resources. For example, there is a lack of water and food due to desertification.

 

Why

In April 2003, the rebels attacked the air base in northern Darfur, because they were rebelling against the government. The government then got the janjaweeds to kill all the rebels. In 2007, the United Nations finally decided it to be a war crime after formal investigations and it being referred to the international court of law. In 2009 the international criminal law gave all leaders including omar al-bashir, but this didn’t do alot.

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