Signposts: A collection of articles on the Russian intelligentsia

Jan Smuts was one of the key figures in the creation of the League of Nations, the first international organisation with truly global pretensions. However, Holism and Evolution, the most philosophical of his works, and one that illuminates his views on international organisation, has remained in a state of relative academic neglect. This paper turns to that work for a richer understanding of the background assumptions of those who contributed to the creation of the League. To do so, this paper lays bare the main ideas of Holism and Evolution, emphasising those elements most relevant to Smuts's proposals for international organisation, and situates his thought within broader currents of liberal imperialism. Such an examination of Holism and Evolution aids greatly in our understanding of some of the most contested issues in the debate over the nascent League of Nations: sovereignty, imperialism, self-determination, and the conception of politics in organic terms.     

Being international in times of war: Arthur Sweetser and the shifting of the League of Nations to the United Nations

Transnational actors are increasingly surfacing when it comes to understanding the global dimensions of the modern nation-state. Thinking of the modern state from the diversity of its personnel and its many intersections with private and semi-private actors or institutions with a transnational reach, the new diplomatic history acknowledges the embeddedness of states in border-crossing agencies. What has been conceptualized as ‘network diplomacy’ grasps both the role of transnational epistemic communities for the making of particular policy fields and the perception of diplomats as an integral part of transnational initiatives. Taking the League of Nations as a case study, this article analyses how its personnel attempted to spell out ideas of network diplomacy and to make their exposed position at the intersection of transnational civil society, state politics and international institutions work to effect political change. We focus on the transnational career of Arthur Sweetser (1888–1968) who, as a journalist, a long-term member of the League secretariat, the UN staff and the US administration, was at the forefront of developing new techniques of diplomatic practices beyond institutional mandates. Sweetser’s trajectory allows us to illuminate the mechanisms of network diplomacy by probing into multi-layered negotiation processes that engaged state practices, international institutions and the border-crossing agency of individuals. Characterizing him as transnational enables one to interlink his mobile trajectory with a particular scope of action that unfolded beyond the political demarcation of the nation-state and its instituted logics of rule and diplomacy. We further carve out the main features of a diplomatic practice that was formally non-existent yet crucial to the transfer of League principles, practices and personnel to the new United Nations.     

Economic and Social Thinking at the UN in Historical Perspective

This article begins to examine the history of economic and social ideas launched or nurtured by the United Nations (UN). In 1999, the United Nations Intellectual History Project was initiated, to analyse the UN as an intellectual actor, and to shed light on the role of the UN system in creating knowledge and in influencing international policy‐making: this article is based on the first five books and the oral histories from that Project. The starting point is that ideas may be the most important legacy of the UN for human rights, economic and social development, as well as for peace and security. For the authors, this ‘intellectual history’ provides a way to explore the origins of particular ideas; trace their course within institutions, scholarship, and discourse; and in some cases evaluate the impact of ideas on policy and action.     

Parliament and the Press: Forging the United Nations in Wartime Britain, 1939–45

During the Second World War, not only the United States but also Great Britain played a leading role in planning and establishing the United Nations (UN) as a new international organisation to replace the League of Nations. While scholarship on post-war planning is extensive, relatively little exists on how the planning process was discussed and depicted publicly in Britain. The purpose of this article is to fill such lacunae by examining the two most important domains for public discussion at the time, the press and parliament. It will argue, first, that the League of Nations’ experience – its inability to use collective force and its optimistically democratic structure – overwhelmingly shaped public discourse in reference to the UN. By referring to the past, the press and politicians alike in Britain were content to relinquish interwar ideas such as equal rights and equal representation for all nations. Second, apart from the lessons of history, the less democratic structure of the new world organisation was justified from the perspective of great power politics. The desire to make the grand alliance between Britain, the United States of America, and the USSR functional despite all mutual suspicions, directed the view of the UN, and typically overrode all other concerns relating to post-war planning. Finally, throughout the wartime planning of the UN, public opinion, in so far as press and parliament were concerned, held fast to the idea that the British empire was not to be touched by the UN. In public, the establishment of the UN was hardly considered as a starting point for decolonisation. Instead, the UN was designed to become the post-war embodiment of the grand alliance, a vehicle through which the victory over the Axis powers would be managed at the global level: such management did not envision the need to let empire go. Viewed this way, it also becomes clear that nationalism and internationalism were not mutually exclusive or binary visions, but coexisted and shifted in importance throughout the period examined.     

Female and National Self‐Determination: A Gender Re‐reading of ‘The Apogee of Nationalism’

Abstract. This article offers a gender re‐reading of the international history of the post‐First World War peace process, a period when nationalism is said to have reached its ‘apogee’, when national self‐determination and mutual cooperation between nations in the form of a League of Nations defined liberal aspirations for a democratic new world order. It was also a period when international women's organisations emphasised female self‐determination as both a national and international issue. Juxtaposed, these two aspects of the history of the peace of 1919 shed light on the importance of sex difference to the idea of national self‐determination and to the overlapping constitution of the national and the international as spheres of political agency and influence in the early twentieth century.     

Humanitarian Intervention After Kosovo: Emergent Norm,Moral Duty or the Coming Anarchy?

In March 1999 NATO justified the use of force against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on the grounds that it was necessary to avert an impending humanitarian catastrophe. This action was so controversial because it was the first time since the founding of the United Nations that a group of states, acting without explicit Security Council authority, defended a breach of the sovereignty rule primarily on humanitarian grounds. This article reflects on the legality and legitimacy of humanitarian intervention in international society by reviewing five books that explore the strengths and weaknesses of the contemporary legal and moral framework governing humanitarian intervention. The article identifies three broad positions: first, there is an emergent norm of humanitarian intervention; second, humanitarian intervention is seen as a moral duty; and finally, the claim that humanitarian intervention outside Security Council authority should not be legitimated because it threatens the principles of international order. Books reviewed: Danesh Sarooshi, The United Nations and the development of collective security: the delegation by the UN Security Council of its Chapter VII powers Francis Kofi Abiew, The evolution of the doctrine and practice of humanitarian inter‐vention Neal Riemer, (ed.) Protection against genocide: mission impossible? Stephen A. Garrett, Doing good and doing well: an examination of humanitarian inter‐vention Albrecht Schnabel and Ramesh Thakur, (eds.) Kosovo and the challenge of humanitarian intervention: selective indignation, collective action, and international citizenship     

‘That mad hatters tea party on the East River’: Conservative journals of opinion and the United Nations 1964–1981

During the 1960s and 1970s the Right viewed the United Nations as an institution that had lost its way. Writers for the journals of conservative opinion believed America’s complacent position toward the UN’s anti-western attitudes were representative of a nation that was no longer confident as a leader in the world. It was a course they were determined to change. The actions of National Review, Human Events and Commentary were not singularly responsible for the success or failure of American policy at the UN, but the language they employed contributed to the tone Ronald Reagan used during his presidency.     

Sex Trafficking to the Federated Malay States 1920–1940: From Migration for Prostitution to Victim or Criminal?

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the relationships between the colonial government in the Federated Malay States (FMS), international social movement organisations, the League of Nations and sex trafficking. While there is considerable scholarship on social movement organisations and the League of Nations, far less is known about the links between internationalism, colonialism and sex trafficking.

After the First World War, trafficking became the focus of social movement organisations and the League of Nations, but colonial regulation of prostitution and tolerated brothels complicated international responses to trafficking. Colonial administrators saw prostitution as an essential service, whereas feminist and international social movement organisations saw prostitution as an impetus for trafficking. This article engages with newspaper reports, colonial correspondence and Chinese petitions, archival material from social movement organisations, and reports by the Association of Moral and Social Hygiene, the League of Nations and the Chinese Secretariat to extend the literature on the historiography of trafficking and the British Empire.     

Imperialism and Internationalism in Early Australian International Relations: The Contribution of W. Harrison Moore

Depicted as an imperialist by historians, William Harrison Moore, law professor, initiator of international relations teaching in Australia, government expert and League of Nations delegate, is shown to have held a positive view of the role and potential of international institutions, a fact hitherto disregarded yet the key to his thought. He clearly regarded the Empire as making a valuable contribution to the society of states and to Australian interests, but also maintained that the creation of the League had transformed the international system especially in relation to security. In particular, he held that Australia derived undoubted advantages from League membership. Consequently, his internationalism must be seen as the wider context for his imperialist sentiments.     

The UN and the African Union in Mali and beyond: a shotgun wedding?

The United Nations (UN) and the African Union (AU) have collaborated in building a viable African Peace and Security Architecture and have worked together in a number of armed conflicts over the past decade. Examples include the peace operations in Burundi and Somalia, and the hybrid peace operation in Sudan's Darfur region which is perhaps the most prominent illustration of this collaboration. Although the UN Security Council authorized the intervention in Libya, which was approved by leading regional organizations (the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Gulf Cooperation Council), it was opposed initially by the AU although the three African states in the Security Council voted for it. Relations cooled as a result and have grown colder still as the UN snubbed the AU and its initial efforts to engage in post‐conflict stabilization in Mali. While the AU sought to prove itself as a capable security provider and partner on the continent with its operation AFISMA, France's Opération Serval and the UN's peace operation for Mali, MINUSMA, bypassed the African Union. This article explores the underlying fault‐lines between the two organizations by examining interactions between the UN and AU since the latter's launch in 2002, but focusing on the Mali case. The fault‐lines emerging from the analysis are different capabilities, risk‐averse vs risk‐assuming approaches to casualties, diverging geopolitics and leadership rivalry.     

The Construction of the League of Nations Secretariat. Formative Practices of Autonomy and Legitimacy in International Organizations

This article investigates the formative staffing practices of the League of Nations Secretariat. Drawing on the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu, it argues that core traits of the League's institutional capacity and identity was produced through the institutionalization of recruitment practices in the League's formative years from 1919 to 1923. Through an exploration of early negotiations and practices of staffing, we show how the League built and balanced legitimacy, by combining a clearly international make-up of the League Secretariat with acute sensitivity to state interests, and autonomy, by defending the Secretary-General's exclusive prerogative of staffing, in a way that has been defining for the trajectory of international organizations (IOs) until today. The article thus turns to the institutional landscape where the individual and its surroundings meet: through the daily staffing practices of the Secretariat, it explores how an institution came to be, function and assert its influence as an autonomous and legitimate diplomatic agent in a broader international field. As such, the article, as an innovative contribution to the field, argues that international historians should connect thorough institutional investigations with elements of the ‘cultural turn’ in International History, in order to properly engage with and understand IOs as diplomatic actors.     

In the footsteps of George Orwell: Patrick McCarthy as Italian correspondent for Tribune, 1978–1980

Abstract

This paper examines Italy's contribution to the United Nations (UN) and how effective this has been in protecting Italian interests. The first part outlines the areas where Italy's input to the UN has been most relevant in terms of ideas, policies and participation, such as for example the campaign to ban the death penalty and its participation in collective security through participation in UN peacekeeping missions. This paper also highlights the critical role that Italy's long-standing positions on UN reform and the enlargement of the Security Council have played in defining Italy's status in the international community, and asks whether there have been significant changes in the traditional Italian position and its loyalty to the UN and, more generally, to the multilateral system. The second part analyzes the origin and rationale of Italy's policies toward the UN and their effectiveness in defining and defending the national interest. It explores the idea that these policies have been determined by the ‘institutional multilateralism’ of the Italian Constitution, the ‘genetic multilateralism’ of the Italian society and the ‘forced multilateralism’ of Italy as a middle-range power. Italy's positions on the UN and its reform are examined in the light of claims that Italy's foreign policy reflects its ‘complex of exclusion’ and presumed lack of influence in the ‘major stakes’ in world diplomacy.     

Australia and the 1947 United Nations Consular Commission to Indonesia

ABSTRACT

The Netherlands’ colonial empire was a source of wealth, pride and prestige, being seen by some as an essential element of Dutch identity and the key to the Netherlands’ status as a European power. The most prized of the empire’s components was Indonesia. When nationalists declared the independence of the Republic of Indonesia on 17 August 1945, Dutch colonialists refused to take it seriously, but they soon discovered that the Indonesians were willing to fight for their newly-declared freedom. They also found that international opinion, especially as expressed in the new United Nations (UN), defended the Republic’s right to exist. Australia has been acknowledged as an important contributor to international recognition of Indonesian independence through its actions in the UN Security Council and its membership of the UN Committee of Good Offices (CGO). This article, however, focuses on a lesser-known part of the story: Australia’s role in the UN Consular Commission, established at the same time as the CGO. Although the Commission was active for only a short period in late 1947, it deserves recognition on a number of counts: for its pioneering work in UN peacekeeping; as an early example of Australian diplomacy in its region; and for how an examination of its activities, and the responses of the Dutch, the Indonesians and others, can be useful for understanding the course of the Indonesian independence struggle in the years that followed.     

Defending Empire at the United Nations: The Politics of International Colonial Oversight in the Era of Decolonisation

This article argues that, although anti-colonial delegations to the 1945 San Francisco Conference did not succeed in bringing all colonial territories under the umbrella of international trusteeship, the threat of expanding international oversight shaped the relationship between colonial governments and international organisations in powerful ways. By focusing on how the UN Special Committee on Non-Self-Governing Territories evolved as a de facto supervisory system for dependent territories, this article considers the ways that representatives at the United Nations defined dependency and self-government and explores the crusade that colonial governments led to justify imperialism in the post-war world. Through a consideration of the diplomatic actions of France, Great Britain and Belgium, this article explores the ways that colonial empires jointly mobilised to defend colonialism at the level of the United Nations. In the face of evolving supervisory mechanisms at the United Nations, the French, British and Belgian delegations joined forces in an attempt to expose some of the inherent contradictions in UN policy towards dependent populations, and to make the case that subject populations living in independent territories often endured worse conditions than those living in formal overseas empires.     

UN transformation in an era of soft balancing

Between 2003 and 2006 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan pursued the most ambitious overhaul of the United Nations since its inception. This transformation effort aimed to make the UN more effective in addressing non‐traditional threats and to persuade the United States to re‐engage with the world body. Launched during a time that was unpropitious for achieving far‐reaching change, the effort nonetheless produced some surprising agreements. Several factors prevented greater achievement: the episodic attention of the Bush administration and the personal agenda of John Bolton, the US permanent representative to the UN; the failure of the UN Secretariat to pursue a capital based strategy that engaged heads of state and foreign ministers; and the decision by many member states that they would rather have an ineffective United Nations than an effective one that furthered the interests of the Bush administration. Whether future efforts to transform collective security will fall victim to the same fate depends in part on the actions and words of a new American president in 2009.     

Beyond an Imperial Foreign Policy?: India at the League of Nations, 1919–1946

ABSTRACT

This article argues that India’s role as the only non-self-governing member of the League of Nations provides a largely unexamined entry point into understanding the nature of Indian nationalism and public discourse during the first half of the twentieth century. Using previously unexplored archival documentation of India’s relationship to the League of Nations throughout the duration of the League’s existence, this article exposes the varied and contradictory perspectives through which imperial officials and Indian political figures engaged with international society within the framework of the British Empire. Through the distribution of League publications and the circulation of petitions seeking redress for imperial abuses, a wide range of Indians actively sought to stage India as a clearly defined nation at the level of the international in a way that was not possible within the subcontinent itself.     

国联和平解决国际争端机制研究

一战期间,欧美相关政治力量在通过建立国际联盟(以下简称国联)和平解决国际争端维护世界和平上,达成共识并进行了相关的筹划。一战后召开巴黎和会,协约国在借鉴一战期间关于国联各种构想的基础上,建立了国联及其和平解决国际争端机制。但该机制并没有从根本上改变以往国际政治的结构,加之在自身设计上存在很多漏洞,使得国联和平解决国际争端机制在调处一战后国际争端中所发挥的作用有限。     

‘Time of Troubles’: Arnold J. Toynbee's twentieth century

Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975) has long been neglected or discounted by scholars of international relations and historians of international thought. Yet his contributions to International Affairs, as well as his Surveys of international affairs and his A study of history demonstrate both his capacity for acute interpretation of contemporary events and the depth of his learning about past international societies. This article examines his analysis of mid‐twentieth century international relations, that ‘Time of Troubles’ which he believed would only be escaped through a recovery of ‘creativity’ and profound change in the ways in which world politics were practised. It explores the foundations of his approach to the field, demonstrated both in his Surveys of international affairs and his twelve volume magnum opus, A study of history, as well as his essays in journals. It analyses his diagnosis of the causes of our contemporary ‘Time of Troubles’, in the light of past episodes in world history Toynbee thought analogous to that present condition of international relations. And it traces his retreat from political solutions to the challenges faced in the twentieth century and his movement towards religious responses as a putative alternative. It concludes by arguing that Toynbee deserves recognition, not simply as a pioneering world historian or a controversial interpreter of the politics of the Middle East, but as an acute commentator on the international relations of a troubled age.     

Building State Failure in East Timor

East Timor is the newest state of the twenty–first century. Yet its human development indicators compare with the most severely collapsed states in the world. Two and a half years of international administration by the United Nations seems to have had little effect on a social and political reality that has evolved by itself. In effect, the UN has given birth to a failed state. The purpose of governorship types of intervention — which attempt to (re)build governments that have collapsed or states that have failed — was to take control of a local political process and break with an abusive past. This aim was the rationale behind the most total form of international administration — UN statehood and international sovereignty in East Timor. In practice, however, the intervention failed to decentralize its own absolutist form of authority, but succeeded in excluding the local population from the equation. If there is to be any future for interventions that are both effective and legitimate, then they will need to guarantee much greater and genuine integration of the local population. ‘Participatory intervention’ is the next doctrinal puzzle to solve in the evolution of international state–building enterprises of any brand.     

论诺尔-贝克的集体安全观及其影响

20世纪20-30年代,英国国际法学者、外交官菲利普.诺尔-贝克关于国际集体安全的论述对当时的学术界和外交界产生了很大的影响。他不仅是英国国际关系学科的奠基者之一,还亲历了国联公约的起草和国联的组建工作。因此,诺尔-贝克是当时公认的国际问题专家。就思想传承而言,诺尔-贝克的集体安全观对后来的国际关系学者,包括英国学派的主流理论产生了明显的影响。虽然他后来被指责为过于理想主义,但是诺尔-贝克毕生致力于世界和平所做出的贡献还是为世人所公认,为此,他于1959年荣获了诺贝尔和平奖。