Book Chapter

The economic and social impact of the LoN and the ILO. Protection and education of children and young people

DROUX, Joëlle, HOFSTETTER, Rita

Reference

DROUX, Joëlle, HOFSTETTER, Rita. The economic and social impact of the LoN and the ILO. Protection and education of children and young people. In: Hidalgo-Weber, O. & Lescaze, B. 100 years of multilateralism in Geneva. From the LoN to the UN.. Suzanne Hurter, 2020. p. 298-313

Available at: http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:145882

Disclaimer: layout of this document may differ from the published version.

1 / 1 100 YEARS OF MULTILATERALISM IN GENEVA FROM THE LoN TO THE UN

THE HISTORICAL REFERENCE

BOOK

CENTENARY OF THE LoN The foundations of the UN and its peacebuilding eforts

HISTOIRE EDITIONS SUZANNE HURTER VOLUME 1 Edited by Olga Hidalgo-Weber & Bernard Lescaze The League of Nations: a singular experience in multilateralism

The LoN Secretariat was originally housed in the Palais Wilson, now the home of the OHCHR.

PART I: THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Chapter 1: The origins of the LoN Chapter 4: The economic and social impact The Birth of Multilateralism (1815–1918) of the LoN and the ILO The Peace Conference and the Birth of the LoN Peace and social justice Choosing the headquarters The ILO and tripartism: negotiating social progress The organization of the LoN Economic and monetary achievements Protection and education of children and Chapter 2: The LoN’s mandate and achievements young people Peace through Law Epidemics, public health and drugs Switzerland and the LoN Geneva, crossroads of women’s mobilization The United States and the LoN The LoN, a testing ground for international security Chapter 5: The rise and fall of the LoN The USSR’s entry on the multilateral stage The Palais des Nations The refugee issue From the League to the United Nations The ILO in exile in Canada Chapter 3: Universality? The LoN and the Middle East The LoN mandates in Africa Latin American countries and the LoN The LoN and Asia The battle against slavery and forced labour

President Woodrow Wilson. VOLUME 2 Edited by Olga Hidalgo-Weber & Bernard Lescaze The United Nations: the resilience of the multilateral system

PART II: THE UNITED NATIONS

Chapter 6: Post-1945 multilateralim: a second wind Birth of the United Nations The United Nations and the Cold War Major ad hoc meetings Decolonization Chapter 7: The work of the United Nations in Geneva The battle over human rights within the UN system Disarmament in Geneva The Economic Commission for Europe The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the Global South Chapter 8: Specialized and Related Agencies Migration and refugees Telecommunications Palais des Nations, Geneva. Innovation, Creativity and Intellectual Property The World Trade Organization and Russia’s Creative Entry Founding of the World Health Organization

PART III : THE FUTURE OF MULTILATERALISM AND OF THE UNITED NATIONS IN GENEVA Chapter 9: Tackling new challenges Climate and sustainable development The International Labour Organization, social dialogue and globalization Digital challenges Chapter 10: Geneva NGOs, the United Nations Organization and human rights Geneva’s role in contemporary global governance Multilateralism in transition Conference at the ILO. I I The League of Nations 4 I The economic and social impact of the LoN and the ILO

4.4 Protection and education of children and young people

Joëlle Droux, Rita Hofstetter

A slow maturation process When the Peace Conference talks began in January 1919, the issue of children’s rights to protection and education was not new. There had been plenty of national debates about children’s issues since the early nineteenth century, particularly the need to protect children from the risks to which the industrial labour market was exposing them. Governments had gradually come to see this as an imperative. Many people were realizing that children were withering away in factories under the weight of tasks beyond their strength and in unhealthy, insalubrious environments. By the 1830s, most industrialized countries were calling for human resources to be managed more sparingly, and bills were drafted to make children’s work more suited to their abilities (by setting a minimum age for entering the labour market, limited working hours and rules for night work). Yet even when they were adopted, these measures were not widely applied. Inexpensive child labour allowed entrepreneurs to produce at low cost and thus stay ahead of the competition. Despite a nascent awareness of the issue, child labour continued to be rampant in factories. The first real turning point came when public school systems were put in place. In the second half of the nineteenth century, many nations made education compulsory to prepare children for their roles as citizens and producers. Governments set an age limit (which varied from one country to the next) before which the child’s place was no longer at work but in school (age 12, 13 or even 14). Gradually, this became more than just preventing child labour at an early age. Other categories of vulnerable minors saw their rights reaffirmed by law (orphans, abandoned, ill-treated or neglected children and juvenile delinquents). It was now recognized that childhood came with specific rights to protection and education, and almost everywhere, States accepted a duty to ensure that those A young worker in rights were respected. 1924.

Children working in a mill in the USA in 1909.

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Why then did the international organizations established The ILO: the normative path in the wake of the Treaty of Versailles invest efforts in Returning to our review of the history of child labour, we saw above children and young people? Had the nation states not already that by the end of the nineteenth century this was already covered by undertaken to protect them? many laws that intertwined school enrolment with the prohibition of In fact, during the interwar period, many international child labour. This even went from being a national to an international organizations focused efforts on children: firstly, the objective. In 1890 in Berlin, then in 1914 in Bern, the main European International Labour Organization (ILO), but also a specific powers recognized the need to ban child labour in factories and mines body of the League of Nations (LoN) established in 1925, below a threshold that varied from 10 to 14 years old depending on namely the Child Welfare Committee (CWC). Various the country. The lack of consensus on the age limit for this protective international networks were just as concerned, so much so framework heralded disappointments to come. As the ILO worked that it would be impossible to mention all the initiatives towards a convention during the interwar period, the age limit became that sprang up at the time. What these many agencies had an obstacle. in common, the hope that they shared, was summarized The issue of child labour was discussed at the first International Labour in 1925 by British activist Eglantyne Jebb, co-founder of Conference in Washington in 1919, since the peace treaty clearly the International Save the Children Union: “Rapid progress mentioned the abolition of child labour as one of its objectives, in line Eglantyne Jebb, might be anticipated towards a reasonably high degree of child care and (1876-1928). with pre-war congresses. There was a lively first debate, not on the protection throughout the world, if all governments could accept in principle of banning child labour per se, but on the question of the age principle certain minimum obligations laid down by the League, and at which it should be banned. Age 14 was taken as a threshold for the if the League could then support their endeavour to attain the standards purposes of the debate, but several delegations expressed reluctance. which they had thus set before themselves by giving them all necessary India, in particular, invoked its own unique circumstances to demand a advice and information”. lower standard. In the end however, ILO Convention No. 5 adopted 14 For Jebb, the main role of international organizations was not to act directly as the minimum age for admission to industrial employment by 92 votes for the world’s children. That was rightfully a national prerogative. States to 3, even though only 9 of the 39 countries represented in Washington had the sovereign right to determine and meet the needs of their young already had a threshold of age 14 (in the others, it was younger). Rather generations, in conjunction with their own partners in the field (private than enshrine the existing situation, the aim of the convention was to charities in particular). Intergovernmental bodies had a different task: not herald a better future, and this choice of age 14 would prove decisive to replace States, but to develop instruments to help guide their action in how the instrument was subsequently received. towards effective and functional mechanisms and practices. Despite their flexibility, the conventions garnered few ratifications: only As a result, when assessing the impact of the LoN and its associated bodies 18 in 1919 for the convention on industrial labour! Moreover, ratification in the area of childhood, we should not expect the type of spectacular does not necessarily mean application, as one Czech correspondent at results or dramatic rescues deployed by today’s non-governmental the ILO highlighted in 1927: “We ratified the Convention to protect organizations in the face of a humanitarian emergency. We should look children who are still in compulsory education, yet they are used by for a more discreet role. As a process, the internationalization of children’s our unscrupulous employers as their cheapest source of labour”. The issues essentially consisted of promoting and facilitating exchanges of fact that employers were reticent also points to another major problem: information so that countries would become open to reforms. The process inconsistencies between labour law provisions and school regulations. was not identical everywhere. As we will see, many international agencies In many countries, the upper age limit for compulsory schooling did and stakeholders were involved. not coincide with the age-14 threshold imposed by ILO conventions.

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If the ILO standard were ratified, what should be done about children leaving school at 12 or 13 and who are not allowed to work? Not only would the family still have to pay for their upkeep, but they would be Jean Piaget (1896-1980), Swiss scientist, unable to contribute to the household income and, most importantly, Director of the International Bureau of Education they would have to be supervised. The son of Arthur Piaget, professor at the University of Neuchatel, Jean Piaget was twenty-two when he passed his viva for his scientific thesis The scale of the issue and the complexity of the problems that it generated (on molluscs). His interest in biology was the foundation for genetic pushed many international agencies into action. Various overlapping epistemology; he based this on a theory of the cognitive development surveys and studies fed into intensive discussions, particularly between of the child, which is built through interactions with the physical the International Labour Office and its counterpart, the International and social world. In 1921, he was appointed Research Director of Bureau of Education (IBE) (which will be discussed below), or the the Rousseau Institute where multidisciplinary investigations were League’s technical bodies. Paradoxically, it was the economic crisis carried out into infancy and early childhood education. Piaget set up that would resolve the mismatch between schooling and working age his home base at the institute; he became Co-Director in 1932 and kept limits on which these networks were working. By the early 1930s, this role until he retired in 1971. At the same time, he took on other roles, including professorships in the History of Science, Experimental young people were bearing the main brunt of the mass unemployment In 1967, caused by the Depression. Having never worked, unemployed youths Psychology, Genetic Psychology and Sociology at the Universities of Neuchatel Jean Piaget were not eligible for unemployment benefits (when they existed). and subsequently Geneva, Lausanne and Paris. He was also invited to lecture (1896-1980). Idleness and poverty were highly likely to push young people to commit in many other universities worldwide. Piaget produced a phenomenal number crimes. At least this was what many organizations feared (philanthropic of publications in these fields, as well on philosophy, biology and logic (80 groups, social services, youth movements, trade unions and teachers), books and 700 articles). In 1929, he became Director of the International who pressured the ILO to address this issue. In 1935, it adopted a Bureau of Education (IBE), which was established by the Rousseau Institute. Assisted by Deputy Director Pedro Rosselló and Secretary-General Marie recommendation setting out a catalogue of measures to curb youth Butts, Piaget transformed the IBE into an intergovernmental institution in unemployment. This text was a turning point because it advocated for which an increasing number of States participated. International studies consistency between how school systems were organized and how labour and conferences led to recommendations that aimed at improving school policy was implemented, in the name of effective child protection. The systems and programmes. When the United Nations Educational, Scientific groundwork had already been laid in 1934 by an IBE recommendation and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was founded, synergies between the on raising the school leaving age, which had a twofold purpose. Not two organizations were established, as the IBE was recognized as a world only would it potentially relieve a saturated labour market by delaying centre for comparative education and pedagogical documentation. Piaget the entry of the youngest jobseekers, but it also revived the protective was Director of the IBE until 1968 and he carried out various functions at goals of nineteenth-century legislation. UNESCO: substitute for the Secretary-General, Director of the Education Section, Member of the Governing Body and Programme and Budget Admittedly, difficulties arose in applying these measures, with some Commission, Member of the Governing Body of the UNESCO Institute for countries proving reluctant because of the additional burden of building Lifelong Learning in Hamburg and President of the Swiss delegation to more schools and hiring more teachers. Nevertheless, the education UNESCO. Piaget was an international diplomat in the field of education who sector showed so much support for integrating schooling and labour promoted three key concepts: international understanding, active methods and measures into a genuine protective system, as symbolized by the ILO high-quality education for all, the latter being an inalienable human right. and IBE’s joint efforts on the issue, that the ILO resumed work on a Rita Hofstetter convention. This collaboration paved the way for raising the school leaving age to 14 (e.g. in France in 1936).

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On the strength of this, the ILO felt the time had come to revise prominent figures in Geneva’s international agencies (including the LoN its conventions on the minimum working age and increase it to 15 and the ILO). The IBE sought to federate all like-minded educational (Convention No. 59 on industrial employment). But that decision, in associations worldwide, but the other internationalist organizations turn, proved problematic for States that had just voted to raise the school refused to recognize this supremacy as they too sought to become leaving age to 14. legitimate in their own right. The road to regulation was paved with good intentions but somewhat In 1929, to avoid bankruptcy and build a stronger, more efficient chaotic, and the effectiveness of this approach remains debatable. By organization, the IBE was reconfigured so that its main partners became setting a higher binding threshold, the ILO was forcing Member States the nation states, who were responsible for governing their national to reflect on the status they conferred on their children and live up to education systems. To guarantee its scientific credibility and ensure that ambitious expectations, but it did so without taking sufficient account it had an audience, the agency was placed in the hands of Jean Piaget of how schooling and employment ages were aligned at national level. (1896–1980). The psychologist wrote that when he agreed to take on In fact, Convention No. 5 and the twin conventions that succeeded it the role, he saw it as somewhat of an adventure. Clearly, he was soon established the conditions for their own non-application. converted to the cause. With the support of Deputy Director Pedro Rosselló (1897–1970) and a small but effective staff, Piaget ran the IBE The International Bureau of Education (IBE): the path of for almost 40 years. They turned the IBE into the first intergovernmental intergovernmental dialogue agency in the field of education, a precursor to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The Schools were accused of being one of the culprits behind the Great two organizations began collaborating in 1946 and the IBE was fully War. Filled with nationalism and obsessed with obedience, schools integrated with UNESCO in 1969. had trained students to become brave little soldiers, ready to throw themselves dutifully into battle to perish as patriots. For the educators, Five governments signed the IBE’s founding document in 1929: Geneva, intellectuals, pacifists and feminists who stood in judgement, peace on Ecuador, Poland, then Spain and Egypt. Switzerland did not join until Earth would be built by “revolutionizing” education. Henceforth, the 1934. Gradually, the IBE’s tireless canvassing brought in other Member mission of schools should be to forge responsible, free and autonomous States (16 in 1939, 20 in 1950, 68 in 1968). Beyond this, any interested citizens, committed to the values of solidarity and world understanding. government could join in the IBE’s work, and in the 1930s it already At the dawn of the 1920s, internationalist educators were defiant. Why had over 200 correspondents in more than 70 countries. was it that children did not have a dedicated international agency, The IBE aimed to centralize documentation on public and private like the ILO for workers or the International Institute of Intellectual education and to address global education issues through international Cooperation (IIIC) for intellectuals, working to solve global education cooperation. The agency boasted strict and—in its words “absolute”— issues through international cooperation? scientific objectivity and neutrality when it came to national, Seeing that the LoN had no plans to establish such an organization philosophical, religious and above all political views. In the twentieth- itself, the fervently pacifist intellectuals and educational psychologists century context of exacerbated nationalism, hegemonic empires, another gravitating around the Rousseau Institute of educational sciences world war and independence movements, this was quite a challenge. founded the IBE in Geneva in 1925. Explicitly inspired by the spirit of The IBE opted for the path of intergovernmental dialogue, organizing the LoN and the reformist movement of the 1920s, this new agency set the annual International Conference on Public Education (ICPE) from itself the task of building peace on Earth through science and education. 1934 onwards. These Conferences brought together representatives of It began as a private foundation supported by a committee of patrons Member States, observers from international agencies (LoN, ILO, IIIC) chaired by Albert Einstein, of which many members were already and delegates from other interested countries.

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A liaison committee was set up with the ILO and then with the IIIC to facilitate scientific collaboration and a “harmonious distribution of tasks”. From 1946 onwards, these became synergies between UNESCO Pedro Rosselló (1897-1970), Deputy Director of the International and the IBE, with the latter becoming the equivalent of a UNESCO Bureau of Education. technical agency that contributed to the Education Section’s projects. Rosselló was born into a family of farmers in Catalonia. He was educated in The ICPEs were then held under the joint auspices of UNESCO and Madrid and then Geneva, where he was drawn to the emerging field of childhood the IBE. Ever the pragmatic diplomat, Piaget called it a trial marriage, and educational sciences developed by the Rousseau Institute. On his return and by 1948, UNESCO Assistant Director-General Clarence Edward to Spain, he became a school inspector, taught educational psychology at the Beeby remarked that it was a marriage of convenience that proved to educational museum and was head of the psychology department at the Institute of be a marriage of affection. Career Guidance in Madrid. In 1924, he was appointed to the Rousseau Institute The Conferences were designed as a platform for governments to where he specialized in comparative education. Having obtained his doctorate present and discuss the “highlights of the educational movement” in in 1943 and published (in French) Marc-Antoine Jullien of Paris, father of their countries, in order to “gain an idea of global progress on education” comparative education and precursor of the International Bureau of Education, a (ICPE, 1946). Many of the key priority issues were related to access to foundational textbook of comparative education, he went on to become professor education: compulsory education and raising the school leaving age; in this field in 1948. When the International Bureau of Education transformed into an intergovernmental institution, he became its Assistant Director, deputy to his admission and then equal access to secondary schools; the organization friend, Jean Piaget. He remained in these roles until 1968. of special and rural education; and women’s access to education. There Rosselló, with the support of Secretary-General Marie Butts, was the real kingpin was also a focus on school curricula from the outset, with a view to of the International Bureau of Education for forty years. He contributed to the broadening access to culture and promoting greater international annual organization of international conferences on public education. He drafted awareness. Teachers’ working and training conditions were one of the the Bulletins of the International Bureau of Education, a quarterly publication that main concerns, with the quality of education being seen to depend on reported on the work of the Bureau, namely international educational movements. the status and qualifications of teachers. They also included an international bibliography and provided information on The recommendations that States examined and adopted at these the progress of the International Bureau of Education’s surveys. He created the Conferences were not binding, as the obsession with avoiding any International Yearbook of Education, which has been published annually interference in the strictly national prerogative of education prevailed. since 1933 and is distributed worldwide. Rosselló used data provided Subtle arguments were used to turn this freedom into a responsibility. It by the International Bureau of Education’s partner States to produce a was in every government’s interest to have the best possible educational world overview of schools, which he analysed meticulously to develop system to guarantee the country’s intellectual and economic performance. a global vision of the “functioning of education worldwide”. He thus It was enough to simply foster emulation and invite each country to learn applied his theory of functional and explanatory comparative education, from the experience of others to improve its own education system. All which seeks to identify the causes of global phenomena by comparing them with each other and to predict how they may change over time. delegations were free to state their positions, propose amendments or oppose the recommendations, and the implications of this freedom were made clear. By attending, by speaking or making written submissions Rita Hofstetter and voting on recommendations, national delegates were committing the governments they represented (ICPE, 1934). The fact that the Pedro Rosselló (1897-1970). commitment was voluntary made it all the more serious. Over the four decades that Piaget and Rosselló were at the IBE’s helm, more than a

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thousand articles were adopted in these recommendations, the sum of This internationalist movement was interrupted by the outbreak which constitutes a “charter of global aspirations for public education”. of the Great War, but it resumed in 1919. In 1921, the Association At the IBE, Piaget the genetic epistemologist proved to be an outstanding Internationale de Protection de l’Enfance (AIPE) was founded in diplomat for internationalism in education. With his deputy director Brussels. Its mission was to centralize information on best practices Rosselló, he took the very methods of cooperation and self-government in child welfare, discuss and disseminate them through publications he discovered and theorized at the Rousseau Institute and applied them and periodic congresses and make the voice of private associations on an international and intergovernmental scale. Piaget demonstrated heard in national debates and international forums. At the same time, that these cooperation methods fostered a transition from egocentrism other organizations were being formed to reflect on the needs of to reciprocity and from the individual to the universal. This internal young people in a post-war society disrupted by political and social solidarity was the path to rationality and truth and the basis for the crises. For example, the International Save the Children Union (ISCU) construction of intelligence. “Understanding between individuals of was founded in Geneva in 1920. Committed to humanitarian aid for different races or nationalities must be the primary aim of any educationist children at risk of starvation in Central Europe, the ISCU launched a who seeks to contribute to an international rapprochement. […]. What vast international mutual aid programme that transcended religious and we need is a spirit of cooperation whereby each will understand all political boundaries to implement many child relief initiatives such the others—an ‘internal solidarity’ which will not eliminate individual as school kitchens, food parcel distribution, homes for war orphans, standpoints, but will bring about mutual comprehension and establish etc. Its work was financed by foreign donors and implemented in the unity in diversity. It is this correlation of standpoints that we call field by a whole host of organizations (Quakers, Red Cross Societies). cooperation, as distinct from the establishment of uniformity or the This transnational dimension was applauded by pacifists, for whom it Utopian search for an absolute viewpoint.” (Piaget, 1931, pp. 71–72). embodied the collaborative, borderless momentum they were calling The aim was both to promote these practices and principles in schools for to rebuild peaceful international relations. around the world and to translate them into the modus operandi of the Throughout the 1920s, new players such as the AIPE and the ISCU IBE and its Conferences. These methods of international consultation emerged. These networks attracted members from a broad range of and cooperation, as IBE advocates called them, would be transposed sectors (the judiciary, senior civil servants, intellectuals, philanthropists) on an intergovernmental scale. In so doing, they established the IBE whose work was already focussed on children. The fields they targeted as an international centre of comparative education, and it was in this overlapped and these new networks did not always agree, and even capacity that the IBE was fully integrated into UNESCO in 1969. competed at times. Nevertheless, they became a “third voice” on the international stage, that of civil society bringing its causes before The LoN’s Child Welfare Committee: the emergence of governments and international agencies to be placed on the international international civil society agenda. One of the reasons behind their success was that many of their When the LoN began its work in 1919, very few delegates expected activists held significant sway in society and mobilized this for the anything other than political or diplomatic issues to appear on its cause. For example, one of the masterminds behind the AIPE was the agenda. And yet, the LoN distinguished itself in various social fields. Belgian Henry Carton de Wiart (1869–1951), a leading public figure From 1919 onwards, never again would debates on these issues be seen and one of the “fathers” of the Belgian juvenile court model. Another as purely national matters. Now, there was international involvement was the French judge Henri Rollet (1860–1934), who spearheaded the in the form of intergovernmental organizations and, most importantly, reform of juvenile justice in France. As for the ISCU, it was backed by their international partners, networks and movements. Child welfare is an elite group from the International Committee of the Red Cross in one field that illustrates how these organizations went about obtaining Geneva and by eminent members of the British establishment. Between a voice in these debates. 1921 and 1924, these two networks constantly lobbied the Council of

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the LoN to create a League body responsible for child welfare, a battle During this brief decade, they won in 1925 with the creation of the CWC. Its mandate was to study through its investigations, the best child welfare systems and bring them to the Council’s attention reports and recommendations, so as to recommend them to the entire international community. This the CWC contributed to a advisory body was composed of representatives of governments and range of work on existing or associations (called assessors). It collaborated with other organizations future mechanisms. However, that were represented by their own liaison officers (such as the ILO). there were also many failures. In 1925, the CWC had about 10 government delegates and six assessor Draft conventions aimed at associations who met annually for a session of about eight days. The improving aid for foreign associations on the CWC could not only contribute to its work but also children in their country of channel information to and from the national level, where they sourced residence were discussed information for committee investigations and disseminated the findings. continuously at the CWC from 1925 to 1934, yet no Most of these self-proclaimed representatives of international civil Expert committee society for children’s issues were prominent figures. As well as Carton decision was ever reached. It lacked the time and resources to do more. on the traffic Also, the Council was put off at times by the committee’s appetite in women and de Wiart and Rollet, they included the German feminist activist and children, 1921. politician Gertrud Baümer (1873–1954), British feminist Eleanor for investigating. When it established this advisory body, it had not Rathbone (1872–1946), active in the field of social reform, the American intended things to go so far. But the General Assembly supported the Grace Abbott (1878–1939), a social worker and the cornerstone of the CWC, and in 1936 it went so far as to recommend that it be turned Children’s Bureau, Léonie Chaptal (1873–1937), a French expert on the into a Committee on Social Questions where all Member States were professionalization of nurses and social workers, and the Swiss lawyer represented. In so doing, the LoN established a body to study social and judge Alfred Silbernagel (1877–1938). All of them contributed to policies, with child and family welfare as its central concern. The this international development of non-binding standards in the field of Committee began meeting in 1937 and soon published some major child welfare. reports on sensitive social issues that the CWC had already been studying over the previous decade (the protection of illegitimate The CWC’s roadmap stemmed from an important text promoted by the children, the organization of juvenile courts, and child placement ISCU: its “Declaration of the Rights of the Child”, a short text comprising policies). This was until it collapsed along with the entire League five articles and a preamble, adopted by the General Assembly of the structure in autumn 1939. LoN in 1924. These concise articles establish a key premise that forms the basis of many subsequent international instruments on the protection The CWC’s performance may have been limited, but it remains of children’s rights: States have a duty to do everything possible to a remarkable effort in that it launched, within the LoN, a fruitful, improve child and juvenile protection. As for the AIPE, it brought tripartite dialogue between civil society, governments and international research topics from its own network to the CWC’s agenda: juvenile organizations that until then had mainly been the territory of the delinquency, juvenile courts, the protection and education of illegitimate ILO. Moreover, it did so not through a binding process as the ILO children, placement schemes, educational cinema and assistance for had done but by institutionalizing an original form of consultation foreign minors. Between 1925 and 1936, the CWC commissioned many between State representatives and private organizations. This dialogue studies on all these questions, amassing information from all corners helped propel certain causes into the limelight, publicize and review of the world that illustrated what each nation was doing or planning to certain mechanisms and disseminate and promote a whole catalogue do to better protect its children. of measures.

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Facilitating dialogue and building standards Bibliography Ultimately, throughout this period when an array of projects, mechanisms DROUX Joëlle, HOFSTETTER Rita (ed.), Globalisation des mondes and institutions emerged, there was a whole range of discussions relating de l’éducation. Circulations connexions, réfractions, XIXe-XXe siècles. to children and their protection and education. By facilitating dialogue, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2015. initiating debates and setting standards, the organizations born under HOFSTETTER Rita, SCHNEUWLY Bernard, “The International the LoN, with their diverse mandates and modes of operation, helped Bureau of Education (1925–1968): a platform for designing a ‘chart forge the kind of soft power that is now acknowledged as playing a of world aspirations for education’”. European Educational Research crucial role in international diplomacy. Journal, 2013, 12(2), pp. 215–230. HUNYADI Marie-Elise, Promouvoir l’accès des femmes aux études et aux titres universitaires : un défi transnational ? L’engagement de la Fédération internationale des femmes diplômées des universités (1919–1970). Thèse de doctorat, Université de Genève et de Paris- Descartes, 2019. KOTT Sandrine, DROUX Joëlle (ed.), Globalizing social rights: the International Labour Organization and Beyond, Great Britain, Palgrave MacMillan, 2013. LAQUA Daniel, Internationalism Reconfigured. Transnational Ideas and Movements between the World Wars, New York, IB Tauris, 2011. LAQUA Daniel, “Educating Internationalists: The Context, Role and Legacies of the UIA’S International University”, In D. LAQUA, W. VAN ACKER, C. VERBRUGGEN, International Organizations and Global Civil Society. Histories of the Union of International Associations, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2019, pp. 53–72. MOODY Zoé, Les Droits de l’enfant. Genèse, institutionnalisation et diffusion (1924–1989), Neuchâtel, Alphil, 2016. PETRICIOLI Marta, CHERUBINI Donatella (ed), For Peace in Europe. Institutions and Civil Society between the World Wars, Bruxelles, Lang, 2007. SIEGEL Mona L., The Moral Disarmament of France. Education, Pacifism, and Patriotism, 1914–1940, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004. THEBAUD Françoise, Une traversée du siècle. Marguerite Thibert. Femme engagée et fonctionnaire internationale, Paris, Belin, 2017.

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