T'stable of Content

ZZ LONDON INTERNATIONAL MODEL UNITED NATIONS 2017 League of Nations London International Model United Nations 18th Session | 2017 T’sTable of Content 1 ZZ LONDON INTERNATIONAL MODEL UNITED NATIONS 2017 Table of Contents Letter from the Directors 3 Introduction to the League of Nations 4 Topic A: The Question of the War in Spain 5 1. Introduction 5 2. Background to the conflict 6 2.1. Long-term instability (~1820-1923) 6 2.2. Short-term polarization (1923-1936) 7 2.3. Immediate triggers (1936) 9 3. Current situation 10 4. Timeline 10 5. Questions a resolution should address 11 6. Further reading 11 Topic B: Resolution of the Colombo-Peruvian Dispute 12 1. Introduction 12 2. Background to the conflict 13 2.1. Origins of the dispute 13 2.2. Mediation efforts, international involvement and war 15 2.3. Role of the League of Nations 17 3. Current situation 18 4. Timeline 18 5. Further Reading 19 Conference Information 20 2 ZZ LONDON INTERNATIONAL MODEL UNITED NATIONS 2017 Letter from the Directors Dear delegates, It’s our great pleasure to welcome you to LIMUN 2017 in the top-notch, first- rate committee that is the historical League of Nations. We, Dalí ten Hove and Paul Nöllke, are incredibly excited to see you all at this premier Model UN conference and explore with you the issues that captivated our ancestors! Let’s all for a moment escape reality and the things that keep us on our toes, especially the impending disasters of the Trump presidency, and delve back in time to the UN’s forerunner. It’ll be great fun, the best fun. Tremendous. Paul, actually, was himself a delegate in the League at LIMUN 2016, an experience so enjoyable that he came back to lead the committee this time around. A German from Munich, he is currently pursuing a degree at the Hult International Business School in London, where he also manages the logistics of their MUN club. Dalí, for his part, is a Dutch graduate of King’s College London, who’s spent far too big a portion of his life on LIMUN, including as Secretary-General of last year’s edition. We both look forward to an energetic and well-informed crew of delegates with whom to have a fantastic few days! See you soon. Dalí & Paul Get in touch at [email protected]! 3 ZZ LONDON INTERNATIONAL MODEL UNITED NATIONS 2017 Introduction to the League of Nations Born out of the horrors of the First World War, the League of Nations was an intergovernmental organisation created to regulate relations between states in the hope of maintaining international peace and security. It is the direct predecessor of the contemporary United Nations, which took over from the League following the latter’s failure to avoid a second general war. The organisation was formally established in January 1920 upon the entry into force of the Covenant of the League of Nations, a treaty negotiated at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. It stipulated that the League would consist of a select Council of members, an Assembly of all members, a Secretariat, and a host of associated bodies working on diverse issues. (We will simulate the assembly.) The League enjoyed a number of relative successes, but from the outset was disadvantaged by lack of the United States, its key initial sponsor, among the membership, and by its internal mechanisms, not least reliance on full consensus. Members bore little respect for the Covenant’s core values, stirring conflict, building-up arms and casually joining and quitting the League to pursue short-term goals. Ultimately, the tides of nationalism, fascism, opportunism and narrow self-interest proved overwhelming and the Second World War broke out on the League’s watch. It will be remembered as a vital stepping stone on the road to international organisation, and with some luck the experience of the League will remind us today of the fundamental importance of strong international institutions. 4 ZZ LONDON INTERNATIONAL MODEL UNITED NATIONS 2017 Topic A: The Question of the War in Spain 1. Introduction The Spanish Civil War that raged from 1936 to 1939 was a watershed conflict in the history of the 20th century, being considered a prelude to the Second World War. Originally a domestic matter with deep-seated roots in decades of instability and polarization, the war became a testing theatre for military methods subsequently employed by the Great Powers in the general war that followed. The Spanish conflict was also a microcosm of the wider rivalry that grappled Europe at the time, opposing the authoritarian and fascist far-rights to the democratic centrist and extremist lefts. As this guide delves into below, the Civil War is rooted in an interplay of factors that go as far back as the early 19th century. Spain had become an increasingly unstable country fraught with economic distress, inequality, unrepresentative government and competing ideologies among other severe problems. Atop this background of instability came a period of extraordinary polarization fueled by rapid changes in power between leftist and right-wing forces which, combined with the international revolutionary climate, gave way to armed struggle for the country’s future. The international community’s response, which we will now simulate, was highly disorganized and inconsistent. Some powers advocated non-interference, others blatantly interfered. None resolved the conflict but all continued to fuel its worsening. Will the League at LIMUN repeat this course or forge its own path? 5 ZZ LONDON INTERNATIONAL MODEL UNITED NATIONS 2017 2. Background to the conflict The conflict that engulfed Spain, although by no means inevitable by the 1930s, had roots in the century or so that preceded Franco’s coup. This period was marked by the evolution of deep-seated instability, compounded by shorter-term polarization which ultimately gave way to civil war through a combination of immediate triggers. An understanding of the events in Spain requires an overview of each of these categories of causes. 2.1. Long-term instability (~1820-1923) The history of Spain in the 19th and 20th centuries leading to the Civil War was marked by profound social, economic and political instability informed by a variety of events and actors with opposing interests. These principally include the following. Economic discontent and rural unrest. The Spanish economy relied primarily upon agriculture, which employed a large majority of the population. Ownership of land was however deeply unequal, with large estates controlled by a small aristocratic class. Wages were kept low by an over-abundance of workers, and while in some regions peasants owned land of their own, the extent of their holdings tended to be too limited to make adequate livings. Employment in agriculture was also highly insecure, with labour often hired by the day and seasonal in nature, entailing work was generally only available for some 200 days a year. These phenomena led to the growth of trade-unionism, but unions failed to gain meaningful bargaining-power as landholders could easily hire labour from neighbouring regions. The result was frequent rioting in rural areas and increasing support for extreme leftist groups. Conditions were rarely better in urban centres, which steadily grew in the early 20th century. People often lived in overcrowded, unsanitary slums, living on low wages with long working-hours and no protection by social legislation. While Spain’s neutrality in the First World War led to overall growth, ensuing inflation rendered the lower classes poorer. Weak government and the role of the army. The successive Spanish regimes and governments of the 19th and early 20th centuries did not stem the tide of rising tensions, by failing to redress socio-economic and political problems and entrenching divisions between the left and right. Government instability was compounded by the rather unique role that the Spanish army played in politics, by regularly intervening in the affairs of state. The army, in this way, overthrew the incumbent regime in 1820, 1871 and 1923, vacillating the country between absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, military dictatorship and republic on more than one occasion. This fundamentally lowered trust in government and respect for institutions. From 1871, Spain was formally a democratic constitutional monarchy (male vote only), with the king acting as head of state, and government business in the hands of a Prime Minister commanding a parliamentary majority. Elections rarely changed anything however, with real political power invested in an 6 ZZ LONDON INTERNATIONAL MODEL UNITED NATIONS 2017 oligarchy. The army, a strongly conservative force, had also become deeply unpopular, as it had gradually lost the Spanish Empire in the 19th century, lost the 1898 Spanish-American War, and struggled to keep a hold of Morocco (a Spanish colony from 1906). The role of the Catholic Church. Another polarizing actor in the Spanish landscape was the Catholic Church, a wealthy, conservative force deeply protective of its privileges. It was hallowed by conservatives, considered an integral part of the nation and its history for, among other reasons, having spearheaded the repulsion of Islamic invaders, led the fight against Protestantism and defeated Napoleon in the preceding centuries. The Church was however resented by substantial elements of the peasantry and leftist groups, as it owned vast amounts of land and fought back against demands for improved working conditions. Separatism. A further complication was the movements for autonomy and independence in certain regions of Spain, namely Catalonia and the Basque lands where separate languages and cultures dominated. Catalonia was moreover a highly prosperous region relative to the rest of the country, and contributed far more funds to the central government than what it received in return.

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