Politics: The League of Nations

The League of Nations was created after the World War I with the purpose of ensuring that another war doesn’t broke out again.  The only way to prevent another war of that impact was to create an international institution that could maintain peace in the world and that would take care of international issues. The League of Nations was based in Geneva, Switzerland, because it was a neutral country and other international organizations where based there too.

If a dispute occurs, the League could do three things, the league sanctions: If some countries were on a dispute, the league would call them to discuss the problem in an orderly and peaceful way in the League’s Assembly, which was the league’s parliament, the assembly would hear to disputes and would get to a decision on how to proceed. If this fails, the League could introduce economic sanctions; this would be done by the League’s Council, in order to financially hit the aggressor nation so it would do what the League told before. The idea was to led this country to a bankruptcy, just like it was done with Germany in the Treaty of Versailles, so the head of the state would be angry and force the nation to accept the League’s decision. For this to work, the League could make the countries of the League not to trade with that aggressor nation. At least if this two failed, the League could introduce physical sanctions. The League could introduce military forces in order to put into place the League’s decision.

One problem for the League was that, Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States, the one of the idea to build an international body to bring peace, won’t be part of the League, because of the Americans desire to have an isolationist policy. This was bad for the League because at the moment U.S.A was the world’s most powerful nation. Another problem was because of the Treaty of Versailles the League won’t have the support of Germany, because it was not allowed to have a country like that in the League, a similar situation happened in the case of Russia, who was also not allowed in the League because of its communist government. So, three of the world’s most powerful nations were not part of the League.

At the social level, the League had success and acceptance. The league sent teams to dig for fresh water wells in the “Third World” and started a campaign to wipe leprosy. The League worked to improve the status of women and the child slavery.

The league was really influential during it’s time. It served a lot while it could before the World War II.  We can see it all the success it had when discussion between countries happened and the success it had with people. It may have last short as a league but it was an influence to build what is now the United Nations and helped a lot to keep a little peace in the world and fought for it for the good of all.