From League of Nations to United Nations Author(s): Leland M. Goodrich Reviewed work(s): Source: International Organization, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Feb., 1947), pp. 3-21 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2703515 . Accessed: 09/05/2012 23:09 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Organization. http://www.jstor.org FROM LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO UNITED NATIONS byLELAND M. GOODRICH* I. On April18, 1946,the League Assemblyadjourned after taking the necessarysteps to terminatethe existenceof the League of Nationsand transferits propertiesand assetsto the UnitedNations. On August1, thistransfer took place at a simpleceremony in Geneva.Thus, an im- portantand, at onetime, promising experiment in internationalcoopera- tioncame formally to an end.Outside of Geneva, no importantnotice was takenof this fact. Within the counselsof the UnitedNations, there was an apparentreadiness to writethe old League offas a failure,and to re- gard the new organizationas somethingunique, representing a fresh approachto the worldproblems of peace and security.Quite clearly therewas a hesitancyin manyquarters to call attentionto the essential continuityof the old League and the new UnitedNations for fear of arousinglatent hostilitiesor creatingdoubts which mightseriously jeopardizethe birth and earlysuccess of the new organization. This silenceregarding the League couldwell be understoodat a time whenthe establishment of a generalworld organization to take theplace of the discreditedLeague was in doubt,when it was uncertainwhether theUnited States Senate would agree to Americanparticipation, and when thefuture course of the SovietUnion was in thebalance. Though careful considerationhad beengiven within the Departmentof State to League experiencein the formulationof American proposals, it was quiteunder- standablethat officersof the Department,in the addresseswhich they deliveredand reportswhich they made on the DumbartonOaks Pro- posals,should have for the most part omitted all referencesto theLeague exceptwhere it seemedpossible to pointto the greatimprovements that had been incorporatedin the new Proposals.Nor was it surprising,in view of the past relationof the UnitedStates to the League and the knownantipathy of the Soviet Union to thatorganization, that Secretary ofState Stettinius in hisaddress to thelUnited Nations Conference in San Franciscoon April26, 1945,failed once to referto theLeague of Nations, * LHLAND M. GOODRICH, Professorof Political Science at Brown Universityand Professor of InternationalOrganization at the FletcherSchool of Law and Diplomacy,was Secretaryof the Committeeon the PacificSettlement of Disputes of CommissionIII at the UnitedNations Conferenceat San Francisco.He is co-editorof the Documentson AmericanForeign Reations series,co-author, with Edvard Hambro, of Charterof the UnitedNations: Commerdaryand Documents,and a formerDirector of the World Peace Foundation. 3 4 INTERNATIONALORGANIZATION or thepart of an AmericanPresident in theestablishment of it.' In fact, fromthe addressesand debatesat the San FranciscoConference, the personnelassembled for the Conference Secretariat, and theorganization and procedureof the Conference,it wouldhave been quite possiblefor an outsideobserver to drawthe conclusionthat this was a pioneereffort in worldorganization.2 Since the UnitedNations came into beingas a functioningorganization there has been a similardisinclination on the partof those participating in itswork to call attentionto itstrue relation to the League of Nations. Whilethe circumstanceswhich make it necessaryfor those officially connectedwith the UnitedNations to be so circumspectin theirrefer- encesto the League of Nationscan be appreciated,the studentof inter- nationalorganization is free,in factis dutybound, to take a moreinde- pendentand objectiveview of the relationsof the two organizations.If hisstudies lead himto the conclusionthat the UnitedNations is in large measurethe resultof a continuousevolutionary development extending wellinto the past, iinsteadof beingthe productof new ideas conceived underpressure of the recentwar, that should not be the occasionfor de- spair,as we know fromthe past that those social institutionswhich have beenmost successful in achievingtheir purposes are thosewhich are theproduct of gradual evolutionary development, those which in general conformto establishedhabits of thought but which nevertheless have the innercapacity for adaptation to newconditions and newneeds. Whileprogress largely depends upon the discoveryand applicationof newideas and techniques,it has alwaysbeen considered the test of prac- tical statesmanshipto be able to build on the past, adaptingwhat has beenproven to be usefulin pastexperience to theneeds and requirements of the changingworld. Thus the framnersof the AmericanConstitution, whilethey created much that was new,did not hesitateto drawheavily uponthe institutionsand principleswhich were a partof theircommon backgroundof experience in Americaand in England.At thetime of the establishmentof the League of Nations,the view was commonlyheld, certainlywith more justification than today in relationto the United Nations,that somethingreally unique was beingcreated. However, we have cometo recognizethat even theLeague systemwas primarilya systematizationof pre-warideas and practices,with some innovations added in the lightof war experience.Sir AlfredZimmern has expressed thisfact very well in thesewords: . The League of Nationswas neverintended to be, noris it, a revolutionaryorganization. On the contrary,it acceptsthe world I United Nations Conferenceon Interna- Conference,see GraysonKirk and Lawrence tional Organization, Document 15, P/3, H. Chamberlain,"The Organizationof the April27, 1945. San Francisco Conference,"in Political Sci- 2 For an authoritativedescription of the enceQuarterly, LX (1945), p. 321. FROM LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO UNITED NATIONS 5 ofstates as it findsit and merelyseeks to providea moresatisfactory means forcarrying on some of the businesswhich these states trans- act between one another. It is not even revolutionaryin the more limited sense of revolutionizingthe methods for carryingon inter- state busihess. It does not supersede the older methods. It merely supplementsthem.3 We have come to recognizethe various strandsof experience-the Euro- pean Concert of Powers, the practice of arbitrationin the settlementof disputes, internationaladministrative cooperation, to mention only a few-which enteredinto the fabricof the League. Should we be surprised to findthat what was true of the League of N,ations is even more true of the United Nations? Those who have thus farattempted a comparisonof the United Nations with the League of Nations have, generallyspeaking, been concerned with pointing out the differences.4Furthermore, comparison has been made of the textual provisionsof the Covenant and the provisionsof the Charter, not taking into account actual practice under the Covenant. Such a basis of comparisonnaturally leads to an exaggeratedidea of the extent of the gap which separates the two systems.If in similarfashion the Constitutionof the United States as it existed on paper at the time it became effectivein 1789 were compared with the Constitutionas it is applied today, the conclusionundoubtedly would be that a revolution had occurredin the interveningperiod. Obviously,any usefulcomparison ofthe League and the United Nations mustbe based on the League system as it developedunder the Covenant. If that is done, it becomes clear that the gap separatingthe League of Nations and the United Nations is not large, that many provisions of the United Nations system have been taken directlyfrom the Covenant, thoughusually with changes of names and rearrangementsof words,that other provisionsare little more than codifications,so to speak, of League practice as it developed under the Covenant,and that stillother provisions represent the logical development of ideas whichwere in processof evolutionwhen the League was actively functioning.Of course there are many exceptions,some of them impor- tant. But the point upon which attention needs to be focused for the serious student of internationalaffairs is that the United Nations does not representa break withthe past, but ratherthe continuedapplication of old ideas and methods with some changes deemed necessary in the lightof past experience.If people would only recognizethis simple truth, theymight be moreintelligent in theirevaluation of past effortsand more tolerantin theirappraisal of presentefforts. B AlfredZimmern, The League of Nations the United Nations: Points of Difference," and theRule ofLaw, London, 1936, p. 4. in Department of State, Bulletin, XIII, p. 4 See, forexample, Clyde Eagleton, " Cove- 263. nant of the League of Nations and Charterof 6 INTERNATIONALORGANIZATION IL Space does not permita detailedanalysis with a viewto establishing the exact extentto whichthe UnitedNations is a continuationof the Leaguesystem. All thatis