tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/league-of-nations-24973/articlesLeague of Nations – The Conversation2022-10-12T15:48:28Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1917822022-10-12T15:48:28Z2022-10-12T15:48:28ZUkraine war: why the world can’t afford to let Russia get away with its land grab – lessons from history<p>Much of the international community has condemned Russia’s annexation of four provinces of Ukraine as <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63095436">illegal</a>. Joe Biden <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63095436">accused Vladmir Putin</a> of a “fraudulent attempt” to claim Ukrainian territory and said the move was “trampling on the United Nations charter, and showing its contempt for peaceful nations everywhere”. The UK’s human rights ambassador, Rita French, <a href="https://policymogul.com/key-updates/24811/un-human-rights-council-51-uk-statement-following-putin-s-annexation-of-four-ukrainian-regions">denounced Russia’s move</a> in the UN’s human rights council as “an unprovoked and illegal land grab of sovereign Ukrainian territory”. </p>
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<p>Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, described the west’s condemnation of its actions as a “<a href="https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/whatsinblue/2022/09/ukraine-briefing-12.php">temper tantrum</a>”, adding that “any sovereign, self-respecting state that realises the responsibility it has to its own people would do the same”. But the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-propose-resolution-un-security-council-condemning-russia-over-referenda-2022-09-27/">said</a> the annexations – if allowed to stand – would “open a pandora’s box that we cannot close”. To get an idea of the stakes involved, it’s worth looking at the historical record.</p>
<p>Russia’s annexation of these territories is very unusual, at least since 1945. Almost never has a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/evolution-of-territorial-conquest-after-1945-and-the-limits-of-the-territorial-integrity-norm/E81D1E3F2C34CB00D8501BFDB363A1AD">state conquered</a> by force and then annexed a large populated territory like that in Ukraine. And the few times it has happened, the international community has almost always come together in not <a href="https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Denying-the-Spoils-of-War-by-Joseph-OMahoney-author/9781474452199">recognising the situation</a>.</p>
<p>When Indonesia <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/30/east-timor-indonesias-invasion-and-the-long-road-to-independence">invaded and occupied East Timor</a> in 1974 it was condemned and Indonesia’s claimed sovereignty was not recognised for decades. Eventually a democratic, UN-sponsored referendum produced the new independent state of Timor-L'este in 2002. </p>
<p>Territories <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War">occupied by Israel in 1967</a> and the northern part of Cyprus <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/20/newsid_3866000/3866521.stm">occupied by Turkey in 1974</a> have remained unrecognised for decades. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 is another notoriously <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Crimea#Stances">unrecognised example</a> of an illegal landgrab.</p>
<p>The direct material effect of non-recognition is close to nothing – especially compared to imposing economic sanctions on Russia or providing Ukraine with weapons and equipment. But what non-recognition can do is reassure everyone that the international community values a world without aggressive war. </p>
<p>So what if Russia is allowed to keep these territories – perhaps as part of a peace negotiation? Putin has stated that peace talks can now start but that the annexed areas <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/30/russia-ukraine-war-putins-annexation-speech-what-did-he-say">are not on the table</a>. If Russia gains rights over these territories (as well as in Crimea) because it conquered them in battle, and these rights are accepted by the international community, then the relatively solid expectation that illegal warfare conquest doesn’t pay is likely to evaporate.</p>
<h2>How do we know this?</h2>
<p>In 1935, Italy under the leadership of Benito Mussolini invaded Ethiopia. The League of Nations – and the US – condemned the invasion, declared support for the territorial integrity of Ethiopia and coordinated economic sanctions on Italy. But the foreign ministers of Great Britain and France <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Hoare-Laval-Pact">reached a secret agreement with Mussolini</a> to end the war. </p>
<p>This involved Ethiopia ceding most of its territory to Italy and handing Mussolini economic control over the rest of the country. Instead of defending Ethiopia against aggression, the UK and France tried to trade its sovereignty for an end to the war.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Italian Camicie Nere (Blackshirts) taking possession of the railway station at Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, in May 1936." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489361/original/file-20221012-11-6nr8oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489361/original/file-20221012-11-6nr8oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489361/original/file-20221012-11-6nr8oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489361/original/file-20221012-11-6nr8oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489361/original/file-20221012-11-6nr8oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489361/original/file-20221012-11-6nr8oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489361/original/file-20221012-11-6nr8oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Italian ‘Blackshirts’ taking possession of the railway station at Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, in May 1936.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>When this agreement became public knowledge, people around the world failed to appreciate this plan as a prudent acceptance of political realities. Instead, they thought that Italy, an aggressor state, was being rewarded for victories on the field of battle, a betrayal of the principle of <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Test_Case_Italy_Ethiopia_and_the_League/2bI2tmDPgA0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=132&pg=PA132&printsec=frontcover">opposing aggression</a>. </p>
<p>The reaction was so negative that the UK and French governments abandoned the proposals and Hoare and Laval resigned in disgrace. Nevertheless, a month later, the US dropped its arms embargo against Italy and the League of Nations voted to end sanctions. Even though the US, the Soviet Union and a few other states refused to recognise Italy’s empire in East Africa, it was enough that the consensus was broken. </p>
<p>Some states, including Honduras, Nicaragua, Chile, Venezuela, Spain and Hungary left the League of Nations completely in response. A group of smaller European states, including Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium said that they would no longer participate in the League’s collective security. </p>
<p>Remaining states, such as the UK and France, decided to try a newfangled policy of appeasement as a way to deal with aggressive states. The theory was that if you gave into states with demands, such as Germany under Hitler, they would then leave everyone alone and be responsible members of international society. What the failure of collective security in the Ethiopian crisis did was to remove collective security from the menu of options considered serious tools to deal with Italy and Germany. </p>
<h2>Non-recognition is essential</h2>
<p>The lesson from these historical precursors is that upholding the principle that conquest does not pay is potentially sustainable indefinitely. The division of Cyprus into the Republic of Cyprus in the south and the unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is coming up to its 50th anniversary in November 2023. The north is still <a href="https://carnegieeurope.eu/2018/12/03/cyprus-in-europe-in-limbo-pub-77844">unable to trade with the EU</a> because of the legal barriers created by non-recognition. </p>
<p>Non-recognition is essential for maintaining the existing consensus that success in battle should not confer rights on the victor. Without non-recognition, the will to protect the current <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2022/04/Percentage-of-years-in-which-the-great-powers-fought-one-another-1500%E2%80%932000-709x550.png">relatively</a> <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-in-state-based-conflicts-per-100000?country=Africa%7EEurope%7EAmericas%7EOWID_WRL%7EMiddle+East%7EAsia+%26+Oceania">peaceful</a> global order might evaporate like it did in the 1930s. </p>
<p>If Russia is allowed to keep the territories it has occupied by force of arms, a similar situation might develop as aggressors are encouraged and smaller countries feel the need to rearm themselves. We have already seen Finland and Sweden sign accession deals with Nato, which will immediately involve Nato bases moving closer to Russian territory. </p>
<p>Success in the field will send a message that might is right. This would not bode well for a peaceful and secure future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191782/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph O'Mahoney received funding for research on this topic from the Josephine de Karman Fellowship Trust and the Loughran Foundation. </span></em></p>History tells us that non-recognition works and that simply accepting illegal invasions sets a dangerous precedent.Joseph O'Mahoney, Associate Professor of International Relations, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1820282022-05-10T12:05:05Z2022-05-10T12:05:05ZRussia is being made a pariah state – just like it and the Soviet Union were for most of the last 105 years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462088/original/file-20220509-15-nixqyr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C19%2C6437%2C4224&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Smoke rises on April 15, 2022, above 400 new graves in the town of Severodonetsk, Ukraine. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bulldozer-excaves-new-graves-in-yalovshchina-cemetery-for-news-photo/1240267875?adppopup=true">Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. and its European allies recently said they planned to take a new approach in their relations with Russia: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/04/16/us-nato-isolate-russia/">They would isolate and contain the country</a> in the aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine. Doing so would keep Russia out of international organizations, restrict imports and exports, and prevent further military moves, ultimately <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/briefing/russia-ukraine-war-us.html">weakening it</a>. </p>
<p>This treatment of Russia is nothing new for Western countries. While Russia is more <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/09/ukraine-russia-iron-curtain/">economically and politically isolated</a> now than it has ever been, it is no stranger to isolation and containment.</p>
<p>Looking back over the last 100 years, it’s clear that the period <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/06/20/thirty-years-of-u.s.-policy-toward-russia-can-vicious-circle-be-broken-pub-79323">between 1992 and 2001, when Russia embraced the West and was largely embraced by it</a>, is the exception. For most of the <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-russia/#:%7E:text=U.S.%2DRUSSIA%20RELATIONS,following%20the%201917%20Bolshevik%20Revolution.">20th century and the early 21st century</a>, Russia has been a fearsome power that the West has wanted to hobble. </p>
<p>The West is now returning to a strategy that was effective before in containing Russia.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Five men in dark suits standing and talking in front of a flag display." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">NATO leaders during a break at a NATO summit on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, at the alliance’s headquarters, on March 24, 2022, in Brussels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/italys-prime-minister-mario-draghi-nato-secretary-general-news-photo/1239466016?adppopup=true">Photo by Henry Nicholls - Pool/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Russia stands alone – mostly</h2>
<p>Following the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Revolution">Russian Revolution in 1917</a>, Russia, as part of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Soviet-Union/The-Russian-Revolution">newly formed Soviet Union</a>, found itself isolated from other nations. A revolutionary state that <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Revolution">espoused an ideology of worldwide revolution</a> threatened other powers.</p>
<p>That isolation took many forms. The country was not a signatory to the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/paris-peace">Treaty of Versailles</a>, the most important of several treaties that ended World War I. It was not a member of the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/league">League of Nations</a>, the organization founded after World War I to resolve disputes between nations, until 1934. Russia had no <a href="https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1921-2/trade-pacts-with-the-west/">foreign trade agreements before 1921</a> and was <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1924-12-15/britains-recognition-soviet-government">not fully recognized in diplomacy by non-Russian powers before 1924</a>.</p>
<p>As a revolutionary pariah state that saw itself <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390701343490">encircled by enemies</a>, the Soviet Union hardened its view of the world. While the so-called <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/big-three">Grand Alliance of the U.S., Great Britain and Soviet Union</a> found common cause against Nazi Germany during World War II, the relationship was never comfortable. <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/yalta-conference-foreshadows-the-cold-war">It crumbled swiftly after the war</a> as the three powers focused on their respective spheres of vital interest and expressed differing views for the postwar world.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People in long, dark coats during the winter in front of the ruins of a multi-story building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People crowd the street in front of the ruins of the Nikitsky Gate to the Imperial Palace in Petrograd (St. Petersburg and Leningrad) shortly after the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in February 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SovietRevolution1917/fa6a4781bb9141738999e75c8711608d/photo?Query=Russian%20Revolution&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=794&currentItemNo=4">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Containment’s beginnings</h2>
<p>After World War II, the U.S. wanted to ensure that democratic governments were established in Europe. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/how-communism-took-over-eastern-europe-after-world-war-ii/263938/">The Soviets were intent on establishing communist regimes</a> in Eastern Europe. </p>
<p>To frustrate Russia’s ambitions, what was called “the doctrine of containment” became postwar policy. It was most famously articulated by U.S. diplomat George Kennan in <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1947-07-01/sources-soviet-conduct">a cable in 1946, later published in Foreign Affairs in 1947</a>. </p>
<p>“It is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies,” wrote Kennan. </p>
<p>“The United States has it in its power to increase enormously the strains under which Soviet policy must operate … to promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power,” he wrote.</p>
<p>Kennan wrote that the West would not find a way to live with the Soviet Union and that Soviet power could not be controlled by logic or reason, but could be influenced by the logic of force. He argued that political and economic means could be used to contain Soviet power and potentially force it to retreat in its ambitions.</p>
<h2>Iron Curtain entrenches</h2>
<p>Kennan’s calls for containment of the Soviet Union were followed by concrete actions by the U.S. government. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/truman-doctrine">Truman Doctrine</a> in 1947 advocated for the U.S. to help rebuild shattered postwar economies in Europe so communism would not become an attractive proposition. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/marshall-plan">Marshall Plan</a> implemented this approach and extended economic assistance to postwar Europe. It helped reinvigorate European industry and laid a pathway for European integration. Marshall Plan assistance, which ultimately totaled US$155 billion in current dollars, was offered to all European countries, including the Soviet Union. But the Soviets rejected the offer and forced Eastern European countries under their influence to do the same. </p>
<p>The Soviets answered these Western moves with the <a href="https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1947-2/cominform-and-the-soviet-bloc/">creation in 1947 of the Cominform</a>, a Soviet-led bloc of Communist parties aimed at defeating what it saw as U.S.-led Western imperialism and cementing party rule in member countries. Further moves came in 1949 with the creation of the economic organization of Communist countries <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095626480">known as COMECON</a>. </p>
<p>The result was the clear division of Europe into two economic and political spheres, isolating the Soviet bloc from the West. The “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Iron-Curtain">Iron Curtain</a>” – the ideological, military and economic divide between democratic Western countries and the Soviet Union, along with the communist countries in its orbit – had solidified.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in academic robe and cap introduces a chubby man wearing a bow tie as he approaches a lectern." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Harry Truman, right, introduces Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, before Churchill’s speech on March 5, 1946, in Fulton, Missouri, in which he coined the phrase ‘Iron Curtain.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-harry-truman-introduces-winston-churchill-who-a-news-photo/515578388?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Containment’s militarization</h2>
<p>Concern grew among the Western countries about potential military confrontation with the Soviet Union. That led in 1949 to the formation of the <a href="https://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html">North Atlantic Treaty Organization</a>, or NATO, as part of the move to contain the Soviet Union militarily.</p>
<p>Following NATO’s creation, in 1950 the U.S. State Department <a href="https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116191.pdf">proposed a new policy</a> – <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/NSC68#:%7E:text=National%20Security%20Council%20Paper%20NSC,Staff%20on%20April%207%2C%201950.">a top-secret report referred to as “NSC-68”</a> – that emphasized the use of military force over diplomacy in dealing with Soviet power. As the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/NSC68#:%7E:text=National%20Security%20Council%20Paper%20NSC,Staff%20on%20April%207%2C%201950.">State Department Historian writes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Its authors argued that one of the most pressing threats confronting the United States was the ‘hostile design’ of the Soviet Union. The authors concluded that the Soviet threat would soon be greatly augmented by the addition of more weapons, including nuclear weapons, to the Soviet arsenal. They argued that the best course of action was to respond in kind with a massive build-up of the U.S. military and its weaponry.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>More aggressive than Kennan’s ideas of containment, <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/NSC68">this policy called for a massive buildup of U.S. conventional and nuclear arsenals</a>. Soviet ambition would thus be restricted because its leaders would not likely seek a hot war with the West. </p>
<p>President Harry Truman signed off on NSC-68 in September 1950. It remained U.S. policy until the end of the Cold War in 1991. </p>
<h2>Containment’s effects</h2>
<p>By the early 1950s, The Soviet Union was isolated and contained by economic, political and military means in Europe. Yet Soviet leaders <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/how-communism-took-over-eastern-europe-after-world-war-ii/263938/">sought to consolidate and maintain power over Eastern Europe</a>, using force at times. The Soviets also exercised cautious ambitions in other regions, provoking Western fears of a spread of Soviet power to the Far East, the developing world and Latin America. </p>
<p>The U.S. and its partners worked to isolate Soviet power beyond Europe with the creation of the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/seato">Southeast Asia Treaty Organization</a> in 1954 and through attempts to support noncommunist regimes in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and the developing world during the ensuing decades.</p>
<p>[<em>Understand key political developments, each week.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=politics&source=inline-politics-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s politics newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>The effects of the isolation of the Soviet Union during the Cold War era became clear as Soviet and Eastern Bloc economies <a href="https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/russia-and-its-former-satellites-lag-behind-rest-of-europe-on-per-capita-gdp">lagged behind those of the West</a>, particularly in the production of consumer goods, as early as the 1950s. The <a href="https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-19-1-a-life-under-communism-in-eastern-europe">democratic freedoms of the West were largely absent</a>. </p>
<p>Isolation also led to the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/intn.html">Soviet closed state</a>, with propaganda, the stifling of dissent, censorship, a state-controlled media, suspicion of foreigners and a society that was intended to be impervious to foreign influence. </p>
<p>Additionally, the West’s militarized containment of the Soviet Union drove <a href="https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-russia-nuclear-arms-control">a costly arms race</a>, both nuclear and conventional, which had damaging effects on the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3131928">Soviet economy by the late 1970s</a>. That contributed to other societal challenges to Soviet power, such as rising nationalism and disillusionment with the Soviet project, which became clear <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB298/Document%204.pdf">in the 1980s as Soviet society faced food and consumer good shortages</a><a href="https://www.jec.senate.gov/reports/97th%20Congress/Soviet%20Economy%20in%20the%201980s%20-%20Problems%20and%20Prospects%20Part%20I%20%281185%29.pdf">and dissent rose</a>. All served as contributing factors to the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/collapse-soviet-union#:%7E:text=Gorbachev's%20decision%20to%20loosen%20the,Communist%20rule%20throughout%20Eastern%20Europe.">fall of the Soviet Union</a> in 1991.</p>
<p>In 2022, the West is responding to Russian aggression as it has done so before – through implementing policies of isolation and containment to curb and weaken Russian power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182028/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alastair Kocho-Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The West’s new approach to Russia – bar it from international organizations, restrict international trade, prevent further military moves – looks just like how it treated Russia in the 20th century.Alastair Kocho-Williams, Professor of History, Clarkson UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1689722021-10-13T08:52:07Z2021-10-13T08:52:07ZHousing shortages and crowded classes: how life on campus changed after the first world war<p>Young people in the UK have reportedly taken up university places at <a href="https://www.ucas.com/corporate/news-and-key-documents/news/record-levels-young-people-accepted-university">record levels</a> in 2021. Some institutions have over-recruited and now face great pressure on their resources. Students are having trouble finding <a href="https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-students-living-in-hotels-5933334">places to live</a> and seats <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/10/students-forced-sit-floor-super-size-lectures-greedy-russell/">in lecture halls</a>. Some universities are <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57908436">paying students</a> to defer their place.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-229X.12926">research</a> draws attention to an earlier moment of expansion in higher education. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-world-war-i-changed-british-universities-forever-106104">aftermath</a> of the first world war saw an unprecedented growth in student numbers. As a result, universities and colleges had to find temporary solutions for teaching space and student accommodation. </p>
<p>At the time, the challenges of this expansion were much noted. The Northener, the student magazine of Armstrong College in Newcastle, put it plainly in March 1919: “We shall be bulging out of our classrooms and sitting on the window-sills.” </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="The header design for the Sphinx student magazine" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425524/original/file-20211008-23-enbswz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425524/original/file-20211008-23-enbswz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425524/original/file-20211008-23-enbswz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425524/original/file-20211008-23-enbswz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425524/original/file-20211008-23-enbswz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425524/original/file-20211008-23-enbswz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425524/original/file-20211008-23-enbswz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The University of Liverpool’s student paper, The Sphinx.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A contributor to the November 1919 edition of the University of Liverpool’s student paper, The Sphinx, reported that some of their peers were being turned away “from the pursuit of knowledge, there being no more room to seat them”. And, in a report that same year, council members at Mansfield College in Oxford predicted that the colleges would be “overflowing” by 1920. “The problem of housing”, they wrote, “will be very acute”.</p>
<h2>Government initiative</h2>
<p>This influx of students was a direct consequence of the Great War, as many young people had been forced to interrupt or postpone their studies. As our research shows, another important factor in driving up numbers was the major <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2020.1804527">funding scheme</a> the government put in place to support the higher education of ex-servicemen. </p>
<p>From the winter of 1918–1919 until 1923, the scheme provided grants for nearly 28,000 students across England and Wales. In Scotland, a similar initiative funded the studies of over <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2020.1804527">5,800 former soldiers</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Poppy wreaths lie at the foot of the Old College war memorial at the University of Edinburgh" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425523/original/file-20211008-23-woj166.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425523/original/file-20211008-23-woj166.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425523/original/file-20211008-23-woj166.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425523/original/file-20211008-23-woj166.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425523/original/file-20211008-23-woj166.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425523/original/file-20211008-23-woj166.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425523/original/file-20211008-23-woj166.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Old College war memorial at the University of Edinburgh.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Old_College_University_of_Edinburgh_04.JPG">Ad Meskens</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Drawing on archival evidence from the Board of Education as well as university records from Aberystwyth, Durham, Liverpool, London, Newcastle and Oxford, we have shown how these grants helped war veterans access higher education and reintegrate into public life. As the Guild of Students at the University of Liverpool put it in its handbook for the 1918-1919 academic year, “more than in the past, the Universities are to play a larger part in the life of the nation”.</p>
<p>As a result of these post-war measures publicly funded ex-service students constituted around half the student body at many universities between 1919 and 1923. And, as highlighted by the student publication of the University College of Wales, The Dragon, they had a distinct outlook. “The Ex-Service men came like a fresh wind from the world without”, the magazine reported in February 1921, “bringing with them a greater knowledge of men and things, a wider range of practical experience, a more critical spirit and a greater impatience of traditional shackles”.</p>
<h2>Closer cooperation</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/an-archaeology-of-remembering-death-bereavement-and-the-first-world-war/4591D2CC5E9B955823E5918D4634D48E">Commemoration of the fallen</a> was an important feature of university life in this period. Institutions compiled <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-world-war-i-changed-british-universities-forever-106104">rolls of honour</a>, created photographic displays and raised money for permanent <a href="https://theconversation.com/memorials-give-us-the-chance-to-sit-and-think-about-the-first-world-war-102831">memorials</a> to those who had not returned. At the same time, the ex-service generation demonstrated a strong desire to rebuild student life. New societies were formed, varsity sports fixtures resumed, and dances and student rag festivities flourished. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424437/original/file-20211004-25-cw05n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C0%2C1301%2C2225&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An orange, blue and black cover of the December 1919 issue of University College Magazine" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424437/original/file-20211004-25-cw05n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C0%2C1301%2C2225&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424437/original/file-20211004-25-cw05n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424437/original/file-20211004-25-cw05n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424437/original/file-20211004-25-cw05n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424437/original/file-20211004-25-cw05n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1286&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424437/original/file-20211004-25-cw05n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424437/original/file-20211004-25-cw05n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1286&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The December 1919 issue of University College Magazine. Courtesy of UCL Special Collections.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There was a growth in student clubs with a focus on politics and international affairs. Some societies supported the newly founded <a href="https://www.ungeneva.org/en/history/league-of-nations">League of Nations</a>. Others channelled funds and gifts-in-kind to students abroad, for example through <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2396939318782886?journalCode=ibmd">European Student Relief</a>, a humanitarian organisation in Geneva. </p>
<p>Writing in the <a href="https://reed.dur.ac.uk/xtf/view?docId=bookreader/DU_Sphinx/sphinx0807/sphinx0807.xml#page/1/mode/2up">March 1922 edition</a> of The Sphinx, students at Durham University said that “the student world of to-day has a thorough grasp of the need for the closer co-operation of nations and the establishment of international relationships on mutual understanding and goodwill”.</p>
<p>Today, under very different circumstances, campus life is restarting after a time of disruption. Student societies and unions continue to have a major role in the reconstruction of university life – as does the National Union of Students, which celebrates its centenary next year. When the latter was <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/132/556/605/3921233">founded in 1922</a>, it was an important expression of the hopes for a more peaceful future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168972/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Georgina Brewis receives or has received funding from the ESRC, the AHRC, the Swedish Research Council, the British Academy and the Society for Educational Studies.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Laqua receives or has received funding from the AHRC and the Society for Educational Studies.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rowan Thompson receives or has received funding from the Institute of Historical Research and the Society for Educational Studies.</span></em></p>Post-war government support saw ex-servicemen head to university by the tens of thousands. Their distinct perspective – and their numbers – shaped 1920s student lifeGeorgina Brewis, Associate Professor in the History of Education, UCL Institute of Education, UCLDaniel Laqua, Associate Professor of European History, Northumbria University, NewcastleRowan Thompson, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1428222020-10-05T04:59:21Z2020-10-05T04:59:21ZThe Brussels Finance Conference of 1920: a lesson in the perils of focusing on the past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360243/original/file-20200928-16-4qolbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=71%2C241%2C1473%2C661&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brussels Gare du Nord.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://transpressnz.blogspot.com/2016/07/traffic-outside-brussels-gare-du-nord.html">Transpress NZ</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One hundred years ago officials from nations representing about four-fifths of the world’s population met in Brussels hoping to reset the global economic order, and promote prosperity and peace, after a disastrous world war and pandemic. </p>
<p>The International Financial Conference convened by the new League of Nations and held in Brussels from 24 September to 8 October 1920 was not quite <a href="https://heinonline-org.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/HOL/Page?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/leagon1&id=849&men_tab=srchresults">“a gathering unique in the history of the world”</a> as some publicity material claimed. There had been international finance conferences before – four, in fact, between 1867 and 1892, which <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?printsec=frontcover&vid=LCCN97031991&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">mainly discussed the operation of the gold standard</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-slow-recovery-after-the-combined-shock-of-spanish-flu-and-the-first-world-war-recovery-podcast-part-three-140877">The slow recovery after the combined shock of Spanish flu and the first world war – Recovery podcast part three</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But the 1920 conference was by far the most representative, as delegates attended from 39 countries. What they achieved, or failed to achieve, might be judged by the outbreak of the Great Depression within a decade, and another world war within two decades. It’s a lesson for policy makers now about the folly of seeking to recreate an old order, rather than building something fit for the times.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Map of Belgium" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361321/original/file-20201002-14-1879lm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361321/original/file-20201002-14-1879lm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361321/original/file-20201002-14-1879lm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361321/original/file-20201002-14-1879lm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361321/original/file-20201002-14-1879lm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361321/original/file-20201002-14-1879lm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361321/original/file-20201002-14-1879lm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Who went to Brussels?</h2>
<p>The Brussels conference was in a sense the equivalent of the better known <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/bretton-woods-at-seventy-five/">Bretton Woods conference</a> of 1944, which agreed on the framework for the global economic order following World War II. </p>
<p>Memoranda were prepared for the delegates by five eminent economists: <a href="http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/bwn1880-2000/lemmata/bwn2/bruins">Gijsbert Bruins</a> from the Netherlands; <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/155167a0.pdf">Gustav Cassel</a> from Sweden; <a href="https://www.hetwebsite.net/het/profiles/gide.htm">Charles Gide</a> from France; <a href="https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/stable/pdf/2223396.pdf">Maffeo Panetaleoni</a> from Italy; and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/138829">Arthur Pigou</a> from England. </p>
<p>It is a pity none of them participated in person. It might have made for a much livelier debate. Gide was from the left, Cassell and Pigou were then liberals, Bruins more conservative while Panetaleoni became aligned with Italy’s fascists. </p>
<p>As it was, the conference’s delegates held surprisingly homogeneous views.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361327/original/file-20201002-22-1wtwo8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361327/original/file-20201002-22-1wtwo8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361327/original/file-20201002-22-1wtwo8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361327/original/file-20201002-22-1wtwo8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361327/original/file-20201002-22-1wtwo8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361327/original/file-20201002-22-1wtwo8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361327/original/file-20201002-22-1wtwo8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361327/original/file-20201002-22-1wtwo8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">British Labour Party poster, 1920. Britain’s first Labour government was formed in 1924.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flashbak.com/greet-the-dawn-labour-party-election-posters-from-the-20th-century-380018/labour-party-poster-1920s/">flashbak.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Governments had been asked to send experts “conversant with public finance and banking” rather than politicians.</p>
<p>There were no women. Nor were there radicals or trade unionists. The labour parties in Britain and New Zealand had yet to win government while the Australian Labor Party was in opposition. Soviet Russia sent no delegates. Progressive tax policies such as wealth taxes were quickly dismissed. </p>
<p>The British delegation typified the establishment figures sent. It included Robert Chalmers, former head of the UK Treasury; Brien Cokayne (1st Baron Cullen of Ashbourne), the former governor of the Bank of England; and Henry Bell, the general manager of Lloyds Bank. </p>
<p>European powers accounted for two-thirds of the nations represented, they generally sent larger delegations and the proceedings were in English and French. Unsurprisingly, Europeans then dominated the discussion. </p>
<h2>The economics of nostalgia</h2>
<p>The upside to the similar world view of most participants was that it probably helped the conference reach a consensus. The downside was that this consensus reflected much of the conventional wisdom of the time. The delegates were wedded to the fiscal orthodoxies of 19th century “<a href="https://liberalhistory.org.uk/history/gladstonian-liberalism/">Gladstonian liberalism</a>”, which stressed keeping budgets balanced and taxes low. </p>
<p>Implicitly, the delegates paid little regard to the economic rivalries or pressures that had contributed to World War I. Nor did they pay much attention to the significant changes the conflict wrought. The general aspiration was to revert to pre-war arrangements. </p>
<p>The correspondent for the <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/international">New Statesman </a> (a leading leftist magazine) described the discussion of fiscal policy as producing “a number of platitudes which might have been warmly cheered by a gathering of young politicians in the middle of the nineteenth century”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361515/original/file-20201005-18-1t0qavh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Resolutions of the Brussels International Financial Conference 1920." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361515/original/file-20201005-18-1t0qavh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361515/original/file-20201005-18-1t0qavh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361515/original/file-20201005-18-1t0qavh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361515/original/file-20201005-18-1t0qavh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361515/original/file-20201005-18-1t0qavh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361515/original/file-20201005-18-1t0qavh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361515/original/file-20201005-18-1t0qavh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Resolutions of the Brussels International Financial Conference, 1920.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/confronting-twin-perils-of-pandemic-and-austerity">www.primeeconomics.org</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As well as stressing the importance of balanced budgets, the delegates agreed on national currencies returning to the gold standard (which many countries had abandoned during the war). As Cokayne put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If we are to secure that stability of prices which is so essential to the healthy development of trade, we must endeavour gradually to readjust our internal purchasing power so as to bring down our prices to gold prices. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>On monetary policy, the priority was to reduce inflation. This partly reflected concerns about the distortions inflation causes to economic activity. It also reflected the desire to return to pre-war exchange rates (ignoring the advice of Cassel, whose memorandum warned against this). </p>
<p>This was one the few areas where there was enthusiasm for doing things differently. Delegates endorsed independent central banks with the power to resist government pressure to fund extra government spending through printing money. It would be many decades, though, before most governments recognised the value of independent central banks. </p>
<p>With the Great War’s adversaries slow to return to their pre-war trade, the conference also called for trade barriers to be dismantled. There was some progress on this during the 1920s until the Great Depression, which saw many nations revert to tit-for-tat tariffs. </p>
<h2>What did Brussels sprout?</h2>
<p>The conference recommended governments cut spending to balance budgets. The <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015080148573&view=1up&seq=64">transcripts</a> of proceedings reveal no shortage of platitudes and calls for austerity. Gerard Vissering, chairman of the Netherlands’ central bank, for example, warned against “the superfluous consumption of dainties, waste of petrol for pleasure drives and excessive illumination of shops”. </p>
<p>Chalmers declared: “We must all work hard, live hard and save hard.” </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lessons-of-economic-history-nixon-obama-and-the-politics-of-austerity-7603">Lessons of economic history: Nixon, Obama and the politics of austerity</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>More than a decade before his ideas <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2014/09/basics.htm">challenged the orthodoxy</a> of government austerity during economic downturns, English economist John Maynard Keynes was among those who gave the conference little regard. It “did absolutely no harm whatever”, he wrote to a friend in October 1920. </p>
<p>But in retrospect, knowing how the continuation of economic orthodoxies would contribute to more crises, feeding totalitarianism and war, we can see how much harm flowed from wasted opportunities.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guaranteed-to-lose-money-welcome-to-the-bizarro-world-of-negative-interest-rates-119994">'Guaranteed to lose money': welcome to the bizarro world of negative interest rates</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Some may see a parallel with today. </p>
<p>We live in a period when wage growth has been low for years, with interest rates at record lows and many prices falling. Yet it has taken the coronavirus recession for some to reconsider the shibboleths of fiscal rectitude. </p>
<p>Let us hope policy makers today are more imaginative than those a century ago, with their eyes fixed on the future rather than recreating the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142822/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Hawkins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>the International Financial Conference in Brussels in 1920 hoped to reset the global economic order after a disastrous world war and pandemic. It hold lessons for leaders today.John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1401432020-08-03T11:58:48Z2020-08-03T11:58:48ZHow the failures of the 1919 Versailles Peace Treaty set the stage for today’s anti-racist uprisings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349728/original/file-20200727-21-gt3hqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=90%2C67%2C4865%2C3311&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">On May 27, 1919, British Prime Minister Lloyd George, Italian President Vittorio Orlando, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau and American President Woodrow Wilson met May 27, 1919, during the Paris Peace Conference.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/british-prime-minister-lloyd-george-italian-president-news-photo/3289187?adppopup=true">Lee Jackson/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The racism that is now the target of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/world/george-floyd-global-protests.html">protest across the globe</a> is rooted in the tragic choices of leaders seeking to roll back change a century ago. </p>
<p>Nearly all historians now agree that at the end of World War I, the choice to return to an imperialist world order by the victorious Allied, or Entente, powers – France, Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan and the United States – was a historic error. It not only prepared the ground for the rise of fascism in Europe, but also sparked decades of political violence in Asia and Africa by <a href="https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/the_paris_peace_conference_and_its_consequences">people denied their rights</a> and humanity.</p>
<p>As World War I ended in <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/world-war-i-ends">November 1918</a>, the Spanish Flu pandemic swept across the globe, killing <a href="https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-second-wave-resurgence#:%7E:text=The%20horrific%20scale%20of%20the%201918%20influenza%20pandemic%E2%80%94known,and%20civilians%20killed%20during%20World%20War%20I%20combined.">more than 50 million</a> people. <a href="https://www.army.mil/article/210420/worldwide_flu_outbreak_killed_45000_american_soldiers_during_world_war_i">Most vulnerable were soldiers</a> living in crowded barracks and their families back home, where hunger weakened immunity.</p>
<p>Like today, the effect of pandemic was aggravated by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2015/02/02/the-biggest-recession-youve-never-ever-heard-of/#4d41863d3619">economic recession and unemployment</a>. Worse, the people of the defeated German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman empires <a href="https://www.history.com/news/germany-world-war-i-debt-treaty-versailles">suffered chaos under political collapse</a>.</p>
<p>Amid these multiple crises, the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/paris-peace">Paris Peace Conference</a> opened in January 1919. American President Woodrow Wilson personally traveled to Paris to ensure that the conference would make the world “<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/woodrow-wilson-racism-self-determination.html">safe for democracy</a>.”</p>
<p>Wilson had promised a new era of peace and justice in his famous <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/fourteen_points.shtml">Fourteen Points</a> statement of war aims, which included an end to secret treaties, the curtailment of colonial empires, the right of all people to choose their own government and a League of Nations to adjudicate international conflicts. </p>
<p>In 1920, like 2020, race became the pivot of a historic turning point. In both moments, world leaders faced a choice: to restore the previous status quo that had produced the crisis – or to embrace the need for a new world order. </p>
<p>The European members of the Entente powers <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Allied-Powers-international-alliance#ref1228825">at Paris – Britain, France, and Italy</a> – ignored Wilson’s call for world order based on law and rights. With the implementation of the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/m-ust000002-0043.pdf">Treaty of Versailles</a> in January 1920, they chose to restore a racial hierarchy across the globe, extending their colonial rule over territories once held by the defeated German and Ottoman empires in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. </p>
<p>The treaty, which included establishment of the League of Nations, betrayed not only Wilson’s ideals, but also the Entente’s nonwhite allies and the colonial soldiers who fought in the “war to end all wars.” The racial injustice of the 1919-20 peace settlement sparked decades of political violence – not only in the colonized Middle East, Africa and Asia, but also in the United States. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349735/original/file-20200727-19-u04cq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Portrait of NAACP leader W.E.B. Du Bois" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349735/original/file-20200727-19-u04cq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349735/original/file-20200727-19-u04cq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349735/original/file-20200727-19-u04cq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349735/original/file-20200727-19-u04cq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349735/original/file-20200727-19-u04cq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349735/original/file-20200727-19-u04cq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349735/original/file-20200727-19-u04cq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">NAACP leader W.E.B. Du Bois went to Paris to try to ensure that racist laws like the U.S. had would not be imposed in Africa to the detriment of African rights.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2003681451/?loclr=blogloc">Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Journey to Paris</h2>
<p>In January 1919, activists from around the world traveled to Paris <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/1918-flu-pandemic#:%7E:text=Even%20President%20Woodrow%20Wilson%20reportedly%20contracted%20the%20flu,in%20Spain%2C%20though%20news%20coverage%20of%20it%20did.">despite risks to their health</a>. They embraced Wilson’s Fourteen Points as a chance to remake a broken world system of imperial rivalry that had led to World War I and the deaths of <a href="https://www.geo.tv/latest/212756-world-war-i-in-numbers">10 million soldiers and 50 million civilians</a>.</p>
<p>Among those activists was NAACP leader <a href="http://scua.library.umass.edu/duboisopedia/doku.php?id=about:versailles_peace_conference">W.E.B. Du Bois</a>, who had fought against the spread of racist, segregationist Jim Crow laws from southern states to the North. He now feared that a similar legal double standard might be imposed in international law, to the detriment of African rights.</p>
<p>Du Bois asked to join the American delegation at Paris, but the Wilson administration refused him. Wilson feared that Du Bois’ <a href="https://iowaculture.gov/history/education/educator-resources/primary-source-sets/civil-rights-during-and-after-world-wars/dubois-wilson">call for racial equality</a> might spoil his negotiations with the other conference leaders – prime ministers of Britain, France and Italy – who ruled most of Africa as colonies. </p>
<h2>Claiming rights</h2>
<p>Undeterred, <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/world-war-i-american-experiences/about-this-exhibition/world-overturned/peace-and-a-new-world-order/the-pan-african-conference/">Du Bois organized a Pan African Congress</a> to defend Africans’ rights. He understood, as others did in Paris, that racial <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/08/11/742293305/a-century-later-the-treaty-of-versailles-and-its-rejection-of-racial-equality">inequality was the foundation</a> of the old imperial world order.</p>
<p>Like Du Bois and his African allies, <a href="https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/06/the-middle-eastern-prince-who-tried-to-change-the-treaty-of-versailles/">Arabs and Egyptians</a> claimed their right to sovereignty. But they found that the Entente leaders also considered Arab Muslims a lower species of human, unfit for self-rule.</p>
<p>Prince Faisal of Mecca gained entry to the conference because his Arab army had fought against the Ottoman Turks alongside Britain, with the understanding that Arabs would <a href="https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/08/14/treaty-versailles-michael-neiberg">gain an independent state</a>. But the British broke their promise and denied independence to Faisal’s Syrian Arab Kingdom. They instead <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Sykes-Picot-Agreement">joined French colonialists to divide Arab lands</a> between them. </p>
<p>Asians, too, were regarded as an inferior race. Japan had fought alongside the victorious Allies and had <a href="https://www.bartleby.com/essay/The-Treaty-Of-Versailles-And-Japan-F3V33J6WKPTDX">won a leading role</a> at the conference.</p>
<p>But when the Japanese delegation proposed a racial equality clause for the Covenant of the new League of Nations, the conference’s white leaders <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-japan-turned-against-paris-peace-treaty-and-why-it-matters-39527">rejected it</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349734/original/file-20200727-23-11is6ba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The five members of the Japanese delegation to the Paris peace conference." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349734/original/file-20200727-23-11is6ba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349734/original/file-20200727-23-11is6ba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349734/original/file-20200727-23-11is6ba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349734/original/file-20200727-23-11is6ba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349734/original/file-20200727-23-11is6ba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349734/original/file-20200727-23-11is6ba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349734/original/file-20200727-23-11is6ba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Japanese delegation, shown here, proposed a racial equality clause for the charter of the new League of Nations. The leading powers rejected it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ggbain.28843/">Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Racial inequality codified</h2>
<p>The Covenant of the League of Nations, drafted by those same leaders at <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/League-of-Nations/The-Covenant">Paris in 1919</a>, codified the inequality of races in international law.
<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/leagcov.asp">Article 22</a> denied independence to Arabs, Africans and Pacific Islanders once ruled by the Ottomans and Germans. </p>
<p>In the condescending language of moral uplift, the article designated them as “peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world.” Therefore, they would be placed under temporary European rule as “a <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/leagcov.asp#art22">sacred trust of civilisation</a>.”</p>
<p>In other words, the League of Nations would administer temporary colonies, called mandates, to tutor uncivilized (nonwhite) people in politics. Racial inequality was enshrined in the very institution, the League of Nations, that was to ensure the governance of international law.</p>
<p>The mandates were imposed by gunpoint, with no pretense to respect self-determination. In July 1920, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Syria/The-French-mandate">French army occupied Damascus</a>, destroyed the Syrian Arab Kingdom and sent <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Faysal-I">Faisal into exile</a>. Likewise, the British battled mass opposition to claim its mandates in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Iraq/British-occupation-and-the-mandatory-regime">Iraq</a> and <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199796953/obo-9780199796953-0200.xml">Palestine</a>. Meanwhile, South Africa imposed a brutal racist regime upon southwest Africa.</p>
<p>Racial exclusion from the club of so-called civilized nations provoked anti-colonial movements for the rest of the 20th century. </p>
<p>The president of the Syrian Arab Kingdom’s Congress, Sheikh Rashid Rida, foresaw violent consequences <a href="https://tcf.org/content/report/arab-worlds-liberal-islamist-schism-turns-100/?session=1">in his 1921 appeal</a> to the League of Nations. </p>
<p>“It does not befit the honor of this League, which President Wilson proposed to include all civilized nations for the good of all human beings,” he wrote, “for it to be used as a tool by two colonial states. These states seek to use this Assembly to guarantee … the subjugation of peoples.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Prince Faisal of Mecca with his delegation at the Peace Conference." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349737/original/file-20200727-27-1hwbmt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349737/original/file-20200727-27-1hwbmt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349737/original/file-20200727-27-1hwbmt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349737/original/file-20200727-27-1hwbmt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349737/original/file-20200727-27-1hwbmt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349737/original/file-20200727-27-1hwbmt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349737/original/file-20200727-27-1hwbmt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prince Faisal of Mecca with his delegation at the Peace Conference.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal_I_of_Iraq#/media/File:FeisalPartyAtVersaillesCopy.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rida prophetically warned that “Syria, Palestine, and other Arab countries will ignite the fires of war in both the West and the East.” The bitter sheikh turned against European liberalism and inspired the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rashid-Rida">founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928</a>. </p>
<p>In the later 20th century, this racial exclusion of Arab Muslims inspired the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/06/30/the-new-islamic-caliphate-and-its-war-against-history/">violent Islamist movements that</a> drew the United States into seeming endless conflict in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.</p>
<h2>Jim Crow stays</h2>
<p>In the United States, racial hierarchy was similarly reimposed by violence. Black veterans returned from Europe to confront <a href="https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/wwi/red-summer">lynching and race riots</a>.</p>
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<p>The link between the American racial order and the new world order was made explicit by President Wilson’s adviser, Colonel <a href="https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=2294">Edward M. House</a>. He advised Wilson that racial equality would cost him votes in the South and California. Worse, such a clause could <a href="https://www.guernicamag.com/andrew-s-lewis-wilson-and-the-racial-equality-clause/">empower the League of Nations</a> to intervene in the United States against Jim Crow laws.</p>
<p>In March 1920, the U.S. Senate <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/senate-rejects-league-of-nations-nov-19-1919-113006">rejected American membership</a> in the League of Nations precisely because clauses on transnational law enforcement and collective security threatened U.S. sovereignty.</p>
<p>It is no accident that the current crisis in the U.S. has come to focus on racial injustice. Among its several sources are the decisions made 100 years ago by white men from powerful countries who believed maintaining their dominance was more important than seeking peace through justice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140143/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Thompson received funding for her research from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and American University in Washington, DC. </span></em></p>Suffering a pandemic and the aftermath of a war that killed 50 million, the world in 1920 faced a turning point as it negotiated a new political order. As today, the key issue was racial inequality.Elizabeth Thompson, Professor and Mohamed S. Farsi Chair of Islamic Peace, American University School of International ServiceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1299152020-02-04T13:02:22Z2020-02-04T13:02:22ZCannabis in South Africa: the duplicity of colonial authorities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311610/original/file-20200123-162240-1eabgxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The history of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02582473.2019.1641738">cannabis in South Africa</a> contains two particular trajectories that were sometimes in direct contradiction with one another. </p>
<p>The one, the 100-year-old effort to prohibit its use. The other, a history of colonial governments and administrators trying to develop cannabis in order to make money out of it.</p>
<p>These two paths began to develop in earnest after 1916.</p>
<p>The government of the day was preoccupied with domestic political tensions and an international imperial war. As part of the British Empire, the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/union-south-africa-1910">Union of South Africa</a> had to pass domestic legislation to comply with international treaties it was signatory to, either directly or indirectly. </p>
<p>So the Union government introduced the Opium and Other Habit-forming Drugs Bill to fall in line with international agreements signed at <a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/the-1912-hague-international-opium-convention.html">The Hague in 1912</a>. The bill also included <a href="https://www.who.int/substance_abuse/facts/cannabis/en/">cannabis</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/plant/Indian-hemp">Indian hemp</a>. This was despite little justification that these were habit-forming drugs on par with <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/opium">opium</a>. The bill built on smaller-scale laws previously enacted in colonial Natal and the Cape Colony. </p>
<p>The second narrative was happening simultaneously. In July that year the S.S. Balmoral Castle set sail for London from the eastern Cape with 11 bags of dagga, as it is called in South Africa, in its hold for Dreyfus and Co Ltd. The Union government’s Department of Mines and Industries was keen on having the sample tested with a view to its potential development as a profitable economic plant for the international pharmaceutical market.</p>
<p>Such cleavages within the state show how the political impulses behind dagga criminalisation contradicted – but also cohabited with – the commercial pursuit of dagga as a lucrative global commodity. </p>
<h2>South Africa’s dagga promoters</h2>
<p>In 1917, London’s <a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/makingbritain/content/imperial-institute">Imperial Institute</a> declared the Dreyfus samples chemically not on par with Indian-grown cannabis in the empire’s connected market. </p>
<p>But this did not deter the Department of Mines and Industries and the Union government’s Division of Botany in Pretoria. Both realised the need for more accurate and careful testing and standardisation of dagga in South Africa. They actively worked with settler farmers and trading companies to experiment on cannabis with the aim of developing an international commercial market. </p>
<p>The empire already connected South Africa to cities in Britain, India, Mauritius, and the wider Caribbean colonies. Since the Imperial Conference of 1907, British dominions and colonies had actively participated in creating markets for commodities produced within the empire. They did this by promoting them through Trades Commissioner’s Offices. By late 1917, the Trades Commissioner for South Africa was helping test samples and finding influential buyers in places like London. </p>
<p>But market instabilities and competition with standardised cannabis products marketed from India challenged these ambitions.</p>
<p>Soon after, the Mines and Industries Department started helping businessmen seek out international paper manufacturers interested in the fibrous stalk of the cannabis plant. One was a farmer called E.D. Punter. Punter also wanted to grow the hemp plant for oil pressing and bird seed. His close work with the Industries Department earned the ire of the Department of Public Health, which in 1923 strongly reprimanded them for their efforts. </p>
<h2>The law route</h2>
<p>By 1923, debates around dagga had become highly racialised. Cannabis consumption had historically been described by white colonists as an immoral habit of African and Indian communities. In the years after Union, calls for prohibition of cannabis combined racist fears popular in the print media with policies meant to control cannabis-based livelihoods, medicine, and leisure. </p>
<p>This emboldened domestic criminal legislation as well as a push for global prohibition. On the international stage, the government of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/general-jan-christiaan-smuts">Jan Smuts</a> urged international diplomats at the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/League-of-Nations">League of Nations</a> in Geneva to consider including cannabis alongside opium in an updated international drugs convention. </p>
<p>In 1925, the original template for policing and suppressing cannabis production, consumption, and trade worldwide was agreed upon. Known as the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2213324?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Geneva Convention on dangerous drugs</a>, it effectively fixed the entire cannabis plant as a subject of criminal law in domestic and international contexts. In one dramatic action, the deeply diverse forms and commodities of cannabis in Africa and Asia were effectively swept aside. </p>
<p>Even as Smuts’ government pursued international criminalisation, the Industries Department elicited private efforts to test the commodity’s prospects. Mr W. Perfect from Ladysmith in Natal urged the department to experiment with “insangu-based rope”. He hoped that hemp rope would be a great representation of the dominion at the 1924 British Empire Exhibition in London. </p>
<p>But the Smuts government had other plans. It continued to apply diplomatic pressure to ensure that cannabis was criminalised alongside opium.</p>
<h2>Ripples</h2>
<p>The ripples of this historical contradiction are worth revisiting as South Africa enters a new phase of regulation. In 2018 the country’s Constitutional Court passed a <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-court-frees-cannabis-from-colonial-and-apartheid-past-103644">landmark judgment</a> decriminalising cannabis consumption inside private dwellings. This paved the way for an estimated 900,000 farmers to cultivate cannabis licitly.</p>
<p>Pro-legalisation voices have hailed the judgment as an important step. It challenged the racial history of dagga legislation that was rooted in colonial systems of prejudice. But 100 years later, small-scale farmers and consumers remain <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-10-04-legalisation-is-killing-our-market-say-small-scale-dagga-growers/">vulnerable</a> to the international cannabis market unless they’re adequately protected. Specific cultural knowledge of cannabis must also be factored into <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-11-27-dagga-grannies-must-not-be-left-behind-in-rush-to-cultivate-cannabis/">policy</a> because cannabis has diverse symbolic meanings and styles of cultivation and use.</p>
<p>With billions in potential revenue at stake, the ordinary South African consumer for whom dagga has historically been a normal everyday object of leisure or healing must not be written out of history.</p>
<p>_ <em>This is the third article in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=DRSA">series</a> on drug regimes in southern Africa. They are based on research done for a special edition for the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rshj20/current">South African Historical Journal</a>. Read the full paper over <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02582473.2019.1641738">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129915/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Utathya Chattopadhyaya does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are two histories of dagga in South Africa - the one of criminalising it and the other of the state trying to make money off it.Utathya Chattopadhyaya, Assistant Professor, University of California, Santa BarbaraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1291852020-01-09T18:52:37Z2020-01-09T18:52:37ZThe League of Nations was formed 100 years ago today. Meet the Australian women who lobbied to join it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308557/original/file-20200106-11946-1lde1oa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C299%2C4347%2C3063&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The (all male) members of the commission of the League of Nations. For Australia, the League’s establishment marked the beginning of our independence on the global stage.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Today marks the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the League of Nations — the intergovernmental organisation, headquartered in Geneva, that emerged from the ashes of the first world war.</p>
<p>Although the League was branded a failure due to its inability to prevent the second world war, <a href="https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/1536">recent scholarship</a> has stressed that its legacies continued long after 1939. As the template for modern global governance, and direct precursor to the United Nations, the League profoundly shaped the world we live in today.</p>
<p>For Australia, the League’s establishment marked the beginning of our independence on the global stage. Thanks to the <a href="http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/primeministers/hughes/in-office.aspx">lobbying</a> of Prime Minister <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hughes-william-morris-billy-6761">Billy Hughes</a>, Australia was granted the right to participate as an autonomous member nation. For the first time, our young nation would step out from Britain’s shadow and speak for itself in international affairs.</p>
<p>But who would speak for Australia?</p>
<p>A century ago, Australia was renowned as an <a href="https://theconversation.com/birth-of-a-nation-how-australia-empowering-women-taught-the-world-a-lesson-52492">international leader in women’s rights</a>. The Commonwealth Franchise Act (1902) made us the world’s first nation to grant white women the right to vote and stand for parliament. The League was also on board with equality of the sexes. <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/leagcov.asp#art7">Article 7</a> of the League Covenant stipulated that all positions were “open equally to men and women.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/birth-of-a-nation-how-australia-empowering-women-taught-the-world-a-lesson-52492">Birth of a nation: how Australia empowering women taught the world a lesson</a>
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<span class="caption">Australian ‘substitute’ League delegate Marguerite Dale in 1922.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>Yet despite Australia’s reputation as a feminist trailblazer, our 1920 and 1921 delegations to the annual League of Nations General Assembly were male-only affairs.</p>
<p>Australian women’s organisations were determined to get women included. From early 1921, the National Council of Women lobbied Prime Minister Billy Hughes to follow the example of Norway and Sweden and send a female delegate to Geneva. The President of the International Council of Women, Lady Aberdeen, also lent her support.</p>
<p>Hughes was loath to heed these calls but he did make a partial concession: the 1922 Australian League delegation would include a woman as “substitute” or “alternative” delegate, to represent the nation “on all questions relating to women and children.”</p>
<p>The individual chosen was Sydney feminist and playwright <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dale-marguerite-ludovia-9889">Marguerite Dale</a>, who travelled to Geneva alongside three men.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-flos-greig-australias-first-female-lawyer-and-early-innovator-119990">Hidden women of history: Flos Greig, Australia’s first female lawyer and early innovator</a>
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<h2>Female substitute delegates</h2>
<p>From 1922 until 1939, every Australian League delegation included a female substitute (the League formally disbanded in 1946, but no General Assemblies were held during the war). Local women’s organisations made nominations. The federal government made the final selection.</p>
<p>The women chosen tended to be prominent feminists and social reformers, such as <a href="http://www.auswhn.org.au/blog/australian-women-league-of-nations/">Bessie Rischbieth (1935</a>), founding president of the Australian Federation of Women Voters; pioneering woman doctor and National Council of Women leader <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/jull-roberta-henrietta-6892">Roberta Jull (1929);</a> and Melbourne Argus journalist <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/allan-stella-may-4998">Stella May Allan</a>, known as “Vesta” (1924). </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308551/original/file-20200106-11946-1g0hiuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308551/original/file-20200106-11946-1g0hiuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308551/original/file-20200106-11946-1g0hiuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308551/original/file-20200106-11946-1g0hiuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308551/original/file-20200106-11946-1g0hiuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308551/original/file-20200106-11946-1g0hiuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308551/original/file-20200106-11946-1g0hiuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308551/original/file-20200106-11946-1g0hiuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A 1938 portrait of Bessie Rischbieth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia</span></span>
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<p>These women were real-life versions of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/specialbroadcasts/what-would-edith-do3f/4017076">Edith Campbell Berry</a>, the protagonist of Frank Moorhouse’s celebrated trilogy of novels Grand Days (1993), Dark Palace (2001) and Cold Light (2011), which depict an Australian woman’s diplomatic exploits in interwar Geneva.</p>
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<p>Australia’s female delegates stayed at the Hotel de la Paix, overlooking Lake Geneva, and were swept up in a hectic schedule of meetings and social events. Expected to confine their activities to “women’s issues”, they were typically appointed to the fifth committee, concerned with humanitarian affairs.</p>
<p>Before an audience of international diplomats and global media, they spoke on issues such as the traffic in women and children and the welfare of adolescents.</p>
<p>One individual who deviated from “women’s issues” was 1927 substitute delegate <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/moss-alice-frances-7668">Alice Moss</a>, who became the first woman appointed to the League’s finance committee. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bringing-edith-home-frank-moorhouses-cold-light-7270">Bringing Edith home: Frank Moorhouse's Cold Light</a>
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<p>Also notably outspoken was <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/osborne-ethel-elizabeth-7925">Ethel Osborne</a>, who in 1932 put <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/32556654">forward a motion</a> to the political committee to increase women’s involvement as delegates and secretariat officials.</p>
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<span class="caption">Roberta Jull.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>After returning home, Australia’s female substitutes worked to mobilise public opinion in support of the League. At women’s groups and town halls nationwide, they delivered passionate entreaties about its importance. “If we were to allow it go out of existence, we would be stepping right back into the middle ages,” <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/41264109">insisted</a> 1936 substitute delegate <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/waterworth-edith-alice-8994">Edith Waterworth</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the campaign for a full woman delegate continued unsuccessfully. Indeed, for the life of the League, only men would represent Australia as full delegates.</p>
<p>Yet Australia was still one of the few countries to consistently include women in its League delegations.</p>
<p>There were only six women out of 177 total delegates at the 1922 General Assembly, a figure which climbed to 14 in 1930. As late as 1936, when 50 countries sent delegations to the League Assembly, there were still only a mere 12 women included.</p>
<h2>Women at the table</h2>
<p>The tide finally turned in 1943, when Australia began to <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/the-pioneering-envoy-who-waged-war-on-canberra/">recruit women</a> into the diplomatic service. That year, Julia Drake-Brockman, Diana Hodgkinson and Bronnie Taylor were appointed the nation’s first female diplomatic cadets. In 1946, Drake-Brockman was named third secretary to the Australian delegation to the brand-new United Nations in New York.</p>
<p>At the UN, Drake-Brockman worked alongside feminist <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/street-lady-jessie-mary-11789">Jessie Street</a>, who was instrumental in enshrining the principle of gender equality in the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/">UN Charter</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308563/original/file-20200106-11891-cb1dve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308563/original/file-20200106-11891-cb1dve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308563/original/file-20200106-11891-cb1dve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308563/original/file-20200106-11891-cb1dve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308563/original/file-20200106-11891-cb1dve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308563/original/file-20200106-11891-cb1dve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308563/original/file-20200106-11891-cb1dve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308563/original/file-20200106-11891-cb1dve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jessie Street.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NSW Parliamentary Register - Jessie Street National Women's Library</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the UN era, Australian women’s diplomatic work would continue to be dogged by sexism — Drake-Brockman’s 1946 marriage prematurely ended her promising career - but they were permitted to represent the nation on ostensibly equal standing with men.</p>
<p>Yet it would take until 1974 for Australia to appoint its <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dobson-ruth-violet-12424">first female ambassador</a>, and until 1997 to have a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_Representative_of_Australia_to_the_United_Nations">female Head of Mission</a> to the UN.</p>
<p>And, importantly, aside from rare exceptions — such as Aboriginal activist <a href="http://www.auswhn.org.au/blog/indigenous-activism-1967/">Joyce Clague</a>, who participated in a 1966 UNESCO conference — Australia’s Indigenous women and women of colour were not given opportunity to represent the nation on the global stage.</p>
<p>Only in 2018, when Julie-Ann Guivarra was appointed <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/from-cairns-to-madrid-the-first-female-indigenous-ambassador-takes-her-charm-to-spain">ambassador to Spain</a>, was an Indigenous Australian finally included at the highest levels of international diplomacy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129185/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yves Rees does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The League of Nations was established 100 years ago today. This precursor to the United Nations was dominated by men but many Australian women worked hard to gain a voice there.Yves Rees, David Myers Research Fellow, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1036442018-09-23T09:27:28Z2018-09-23T09:27:28ZSouth African court frees cannabis from colonial and apartheid past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237497/original/file-20180921-62950-15vumpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Celebrations after court rules that the personal use of dagga is not a criminal offence.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kim Ludbrook/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-top-court-legalises-the-private-use-of-marijuana-why-its-a-good-thing-103537">ruling</a> by the South African Constitutional Court opens the way for decriminalising private use of cannabis, locally known as “dagga”. It marks a definitive shift in a century of notoriously punitive drug policy, recognised in the recent judgement <a href="https://collections.concourt.org.za/bitstream/handle/20.500.12144/34547/Full%20judgment%20Official%20version%2018%20September%202018.pdf?sequence=47&isAllowed=y">to be “replete with racism”</a>. </p>
<p>In 1922, cannabis was <a href="https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Cannabis_in_South_Africa.html">officially classified</a> and designated for control as a “habit-forming drug” through a national Customs and Excise Act. Consequences of this legal development were not only local: they were global. </p>
<p>A year after the national law was passed, the government under Prime Minister Jan Smuts, approached the League of Nations’ “Dangerous Drugs” committees requesting that cannabis be included within the same registers as opium, morphine and cocaine. Two years later cannabis was placed within international drug protocols.</p>
<p>This begs the question of why and how cannabis came to hold such political significance for colonial rulers in South Africa. What was behind the 1922 law? And how did that history shape subsequent cannabis politics?</p>
<p>Cannabis has a deep <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-african-roots-of-marijuana?viewby=author&lastname=Duvall&firstname=Chris&middlename=S.&displayName=$displayName&sort=author&aID=3908848">precolonial past</a> in southeastern Africa. It didn’t, however, feature in the intoxicant repertoires of Anglophone settlers. After British victory in the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/south-african-war-1899-1902">South African War</a> (1899-1902) against the Boer republics dagga came under imperialist scrutiny. Colonial officials registered ongoing confusion about the uses, effects, and cultural meanings of cannabis. They often conflated it with the indigenous species <a href="http://pza.sanbi.org/leonotis-leonurus"><em>leonotus</em></a>, also known as lion’s tail and wild dagga. The leaf is widely used for medicinal purposes. </p>
<h2>No colonial consensus on the cannabis question</h2>
<p>When the country was politically unified from four colonies into the Union of South Africa in 1910, there were, in fact, widely diverging official views about dagga lawmaking. </p>
<p>In the Cape, dagga was grown commercially. Its bulk sale was advertised in the <em>Cape Times</em> newspaper until around 1898. Although brought into the pharmacy law’s “poison” schedules in 1905, it’s regulation through medical professionals was contested by politicians representing dagga-growing constituencies. Pharmacists were accused of setting dramatically reduced wholesale prices and profiting from their monopoly. For some, it became a roaring, “non-medicinal” trade. </p>
<p>After unification, Cape physicians, police, government officials and wine farmers cooperated to lobby for more stringent controls. They claimed it was a substance that diminished the work ethic of agricultural labourers, increased crime, and encouraged sex across the colour line. </p>
<p>In the Natal colony, early in the century, white settlers in towns along with African Christians and political activists, such as African National Congress’s first president, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/john-langalibalele-dube">John Langalibalele Dube</a>, called for dagga prohibition on similar grounds. Yet the Native Affairs Department stood firmly against this idea deep into the 1920s. It viewed the smoking of dagga as a cultural practice that should be regulated informally, through customary structures of patriarchy. </p>
<p>The department argued that dagga was used by respectable Zulu-speaking men “who should not be made criminals by a stroke of the pen”. And it warned it would be impossible to enforce and would likely produce rebellious sentiments. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, some traditional leaders proposed a law that would prohibit youth and women from smoking dagga, but would allow the practice among senior men.</p>
<p>In the Transvaal province during this period, the official concern about intoxicants was related to labourers in the gold mining sector. In contrast to Cape fruit growers, Witwatersrand mine inspectors surveyed in 1908 and 1911 firmly advocated tolerance for dagga-smoking in worker compounds.</p>
<p>There, new meanings and values around dagga smoking were being shaped by a dangerous and alienating work environment. Cannabis was seen as a source both of sociability and relief from anxiety and pain. For young migrant workers, smoking dagga was a cultural symbol of personal freedom and mature manhood.</p>
<h2>Dagga tacked on to opium laws</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, from 1912, international governments began to negotiate on <a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/the-1912-hague-international-opium-convention.html">protocols for the control of the trade in opium</a>, the controversial financial base of the British Indian colony. South Africa’s government came under ongoing pressure from London to conform to international agreements by passing a national anti-opium law. </p>
<p>In 1916, the Union government drafted the “Opium and other Habit-Forming Drugs Regulation” bill. It now used the leverage provided by international opium agreements to overrule dissenting voices on cannabis. The government also included both <em>leonotus</em> and <em>cannabis</em> species as “drugs” to be controlled, with punishments of £100 fines and six months of prison. </p>
<p>While provincial governments had sought dagga controls through Noxious Weed legislation and upscheduling in existing pharmacy law, dagga was now to be declared a “habit forming drug” under national authority. </p>
<p>As other scholars have observed, racist public panics around dagga in the early 1920s helped to push prohibition through parliament in 1922. Yet these had been ongoing from earlier in the century. For a variety of reasons, it suited the Smuts government to respond that year. Not least of these was the opportunity to represent government <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022009407084557?journalCode=jcha">as responding</a> to the race populism of its white electorate. This followed Smuts’s heavy-handed assault against striking white workers earlier that year, violence that killed 200 people.</p>
<p>Contestations within the white colonial government are important to note, because they proved consequential in the social and political effects of cannabis suppression into the 20th century. Those against the new law were offered an informal “compromise”. Native Affairs Department administrators were assured that, although the new law empowered authorities to police urban workplaces and “white” residential zones, it would “avoid drastic or ill-advised” control in “remote localities” – essentially the areas governed by traditional authorities. </p>
<p>The law, in other words, rested on segregation, a division of racial geography. As the century progressed, the effect of the laws’ unevenness shaped the illicit cannabis economies that developed in the wake of prohibition. </p>
<p>Communal (“tribal”) land became important for cultivating dagga. Through collusion with some police and white landowners, it was smuggled into urban and industrial spaces. Over time, many livelihoods came to depend on dagga cultivation and trade, <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/article/cash-crops-poisoned-pondoland/">precarious though these were</a>. </p>
<p>More stringent policing and extensive raids began in the late 1950s. The law’s reach had dire consequences – overwhelmingly for black South Africans. It compounded other aspects of apartheid’s carceral politics.</p>
<p>The Constitutional Court’s ruling offers possibilities for reducing harms that have accompanied decades of punitive law enforcement. It follows trends of decriminalisation world wide and introduces issues of dignity and rights into an ongoing debate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103644/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thembisa Waetjen receives funding from National Research Foundation (NRF).</span></em></p>Court ruling may well undo decades of often racist cannabis law enforcement.Thembisa Waetjen, Associate Professor of Historical Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/988152018-07-06T10:37:53Z2018-07-06T10:37:53ZWhat the Nazis driving people from homes taught philosopher Hannah Arendt about the rights of refugees<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226348/original/file-20180705-122247-fnyu4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">ccac a o</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Facing a political revolt over immigration policies from the Christian Social Union partner in her coalition government, German Chancellor Angela Merkel <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/merkel-and-seehofer-strike-refugee-deal/">agreed to a compromise</a>, which would create “transit zones” or refugee camps along Germany’s southern border. </p>
<p>Under the agreement, migrants would be housed in designated transit areas, until German authorities determined their eligibility. If found to have registered in another EU country, immigrants would be turned back, assuming that country would accept them.</p>
<p>Merkel had earlier opposed this step, fearing it would trigger border closures. Already, Italy and Austria have refused to accept returnees. And these are not the only ones. In <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/149232/tyrants-dehumanize-powerless">the United States</a>, in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/07/world/europe/hungary-viktor-orban-election.html">Hungary</a>, and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/migrants-suffer-rising-anti-immigration-sentiment-italy-180524174927467.html">in Italy</a>, governments are justifying policies of expulsion and restrictive immigration. <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/19/trump-border-children-inflammatory-rhetoric-655479">Inflammatory language</a> is often being used to defend policies aimed against the most vulnerable peoples. </p>
<p>That millions of refugees exist in legal limbo, sadly, is not a new story. The twentieth century Jewish political theorist, Hannah Arendt, analyzed refugees’ plight in the period between and after the two world wars. As a <a href="https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/diving-for-pearls-a-thinking-journey-with-hannah-arendt">scholar of Arendt’s political thought</a>, I believe her writing is relevant to understanding today’s refugee crisis and their lack of rights. </p>
<h2>Who was Hannah Arendt?</h2>
<p>Born in Hanover, Germany in 1906, Hannah Arendt studied theology and philosophy during her university years. The <a href="https://voxeu.org/article/how-anti-semitism-interwar-germany-was-influenced-medieval-mass-murder-jews">explosion of anti-Semitism in the late 1920s</a> led Arendt to turn her attention to politics and questions of human rights. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226350/original/file-20180705-122247-uc43d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226350/original/file-20180705-122247-uc43d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226350/original/file-20180705-122247-uc43d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226350/original/file-20180705-122247-uc43d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226350/original/file-20180705-122247-uc43d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226350/original/file-20180705-122247-uc43d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226350/original/file-20180705-122247-uc43d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hannah Arendt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/g4gti/6246088123">Ryohei Noda</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A few months after the Nazis gained power in 1933, they deprived certain German citizens, particularly Jews and Communists, of basic rights, subjecting many to detention in prisons. Becoming stateless, Arendt fled to France, where she worked for Jewish causes. When France declared war on Germany in September 1939, the French government began ordering refugees to internment camps. In May 1940, Arendt was sent to a <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005298">concentration camp in Gurs, France</a>, along with thousands of other Jewish women considered to be “enemy aliens.” </p>
<p>Taking advantage of imperfect security at the camp, Arendt escaped. Helped by the American journalist, <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005740">Varion Fry</a>, who <a href="https://www.rescue.org/">secured asylum</a> for several thousand people in danger of being turned over to the Nazis, Arendt and her husband Heinrich Blücher, immigrated to the United States in 1941.</p>
<h2>History of suppressed rights</h2>
<p>In 1943 – two years after she arrived in New York – Arendt wrote <a href="http://www.arendtcenter.it/en/2016/10/11/hannah-arendt-we-refugees-1943/">“We Refugees,”</a> an essay expressing her outrage at the existential crisis her people faced. </p>
<p>Driven from one country to another not because of anything they’d done, but simply because of who they were, she explained how Jews had been forced to seek refuge wherever they could find it in a world increasingly hostile to their existence.
Seven years later, in her monumental work, <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/arendthtml/essayb1.html">“The Origins of Totalitarianism,”</a> Arendt pursued the question of refugees’ rights further.</p>
<p>If human rights were inalienable, she asked, why hadn’t those rights protected asylum-seekers or precluded Jewish expulsion and extermination throughout Europe? </p>
<p>To Arendt, the answer lay in breakdown of the delicate balance between state and nation resulting in national interest taking priority over law. </p>
<p>Following World War I, <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/minority-rights">European states redrew their boundaries</a>, breaking up empires, such as czarist Russia and Austria-Hungary, into single nation-states populated by a dominant ethnic group, identified as citizen nationals or “state peoples.” Several minority groups also resided in the same territory, but lacked the same rights. </p>
<p>In these new states, minority rights were supposed to be protected through Minority Treaties guaranteed by the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/league-of-nations">League of Nations</a>, an organization established after World War I to foster international cooperation and prevent further conflict. Yet, increasingly in the 1920s, these treaties proved unenforceable, leaving millions subject to national governments arbitrarily denying minorities their rights. The treaties, along with the League, collapsed with the outbreak of World War II.</p>
<p>Minorities in newly formed states, such as Ukrainians and <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/resistance-during-holocaust/jewish-life-poland-holocaust">Jews in Poland</a> and <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/1993/06/19/yugoslavia-new-war-old-hatreds/">Croatians in Yugoslavia</a>, lacked equal rights. At the same time, growing numbers of stateless peoples, deported or otherwise forced from their countries of origin as a result of civil wars or other conflicts, such as the <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10008191">Armenians in Turkey</a>, were dispersed throughout Europe and the Middle East in this same period.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226377/original/file-20180705-122274-1k66sd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226377/original/file-20180705-122274-1k66sd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226377/original/file-20180705-122274-1k66sd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226377/original/file-20180705-122274-1k66sd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226377/original/file-20180705-122274-1k66sd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226377/original/file-20180705-122274-1k66sd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226377/original/file-20180705-122274-1k66sd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greek and Armenian refugee children in barracks near Athens, 1923.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002709156/">Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Arendt identified statelessness with the refugee question or the “existence of ever-growing new people … who live outside the pale of law.” <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Zm_f-8NCE9UC&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=but+because+of+what+they+unchangeably+were%E2%80%94born+into+the+wrong+kind+of+race+or+the+wrong+kind+of+class+or+drafted+by+the+wrong+kind+of+government.&source=bl&ots=3URuEMvw4B&sig=7J_se6W4CBz5IFpuYvqtowWqwKw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjK6-jIsOjbAhUBKqwKHTA4D2EQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=but%20because%20of%20what%20they%20unchangeably%20were%E2%80%94born%20into%20the%20wrong%20kind%20of%20race%20or%20the%20wrong%20kind%20of%20class%20or%20drafted%20by%20the%20wrong%20kind%20of%20government.&f=false">She explained</a> how these new refugees were persecuted “because of what they unchangeably were – born into the wrong kind of race or the wrong kind of class or drafted by the wrong kind of government.” </p>
<p>Without legally enforceable rights they were treated as less than human, forced to live under what Arendt called conditions of “absolute lawlessness.” Even if they were fed, clothed and housed by some public or private agency, their lives were being prolonged by charity, not rights. No law existed that could have forced the nations of the world to feed or house them. </p>
<h2>The right to have rights</h2>
<p>The postwar presence of growing numbers of stateless refugees, who lacked the legal right to residence in countries to which they had been sent or sought to enter, brought into sharper relief a fundamental conflict at the heart of international law. </p>
<p>States had long recognized the right of someone persecuted in her home country to seek asylum in another country. Yet, these same states asserted the right to sovereign control over nationality, immigration and expulsion.</p>
<p>Arendt identified this conflict as a paradox at the heart of the long-held belief that <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/resources/human-rights-principles">human rights were inalienable</a>. In the absence of enforceable laws mandating states accept asylum-seekers, refugees remained at the mercy of the receiving authority, which established its own rules governing who, if any, would be allowed to stay within its national borders.</p>
<p>Without legal residence, refugees lack basic rights long considered intrinsic to being human. </p>
<p>In reality, Arendt argued, human rights, supposedly independent of citizenship and nationality, are guaranteed only as the rights of citizens or, most restrictively, as the right of nationals of a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/01/world/europe/denmark-immigrant-ghettos.html">“folk” or ethnic identity</a>.</p>
<p>Thinking about the stateless led Arendt to identify something more fundamental than the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=8f2y0F2wzLoC&pg=PA296&dq=due+to+charity+and+not+to+rights,+for+no+law+exists+which+could+force+the+nations+of+the+world+to+feed+them&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiN2NvFy-jbAhUGi6wKHQfDBM4Q6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=due%20to%20charity%20and%20not%20to%20rights%2C%20for%20no%20law%20exists%20which%20could%20force%20the%20nations%20of%20the%20world%20to%20feed%20them&f=false">She called it</a> “the right to have rights,” or the right to belong fully to a political community, even if it was not one’s native land. She said,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[T]he right to have rights, or the right of every individual to belong to humanity, should be guaranteed by humanity itself. It is by no means certain whether this is possible…[because] the present sphere of international law… still operates in terms of reciprocal agreements and treaties between sovereign states.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Arendt’s resonance today</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226351/original/file-20180705-122247-bh1nn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226351/original/file-20180705-122247-bh1nn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226351/original/file-20180705-122247-bh1nn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226351/original/file-20180705-122247-bh1nn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226351/original/file-20180705-122247-bh1nn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226351/original/file-20180705-122247-bh1nn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226351/original/file-20180705-122247-bh1nn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">People protesting against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies outside Downing Street in London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/alisdare/32601766806/in/photolist-REUzrG-V6oxwA-TSsNVh-TVhRtV-Uywa7c-TV1nrV-UyKhFS-RvsZPS-UXebD4-UU4gQq-V6hbRE-QXMXVh-UWTUV8-Qs2BqG-Rv2PMs-UUuQZw-UUg62N-TVgqvR-UUwBWd-TSiuNJ-TUTEVB-TS26Kw-V9MC6R-TVeSbx-UWQwq4-RJnUYz-TUNuaD-Ra11Qm-REY3af-UUevEQ-RELmY1-V6j6om-QXBhKd-QuAUve-RWsss1-TS344h-V9WuyZ-TV1kXH-V9Fm1r-V6rM1y-Vxos9m-UX1Gr6-UWRcvD-TSrgBs-V6hWEw-TRZiVN-UytjZS-UyBqEJ-UX4JVD-S4d1Yx">Alisdare Hickson</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, there are <a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199652433.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199652433-e-021">international laws</a> related to refugee protection. These laws and treaties create “exceptions” to a state’s sovereign right to control which “noncitizens” can enter and remain within its territory. In some case, they could grant at least temporary asylum to refugees. </p>
<p>However, no legal means currently exist that could require sovereign states to comply with international conventions and rules. Individual states, thus, retain the power to deny parts of humanity “the right to have rights” simply by asserting national sovereignty. </p>
<p>This is evident when far-right political parties in Germany, Austria, Italy and Hungary, along with the current administration in Washington, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/27/world/europe/europe-migrant-crisis-change.html?action=click&module=RelatedCoverage&pgtype=Article&region=Footer">call for harsher, draconian border policies</a> to prevent refugees from seeking asylum.</p>
<p>With the precarious conditions that are affecting ever-growing populations of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/04/world/asia/un-myanmar-rohingya-investigate.html">minorities</a> and the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugees-economic-migrants-europe-crisis-difference-middle-east-africa-libya-mediterranean-sea-a7432516.html">economically vulnerable</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/world/five-conflicts-driving-refugees.html">refugees across the globe</a>, Arendt’s words matter more than ever today.</p>
<p>The idea of humanity, excluding no one, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=5872U7QQl8oC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">Arendt wrote</a>, “is the only guarantee we have that one ‘superior race’ after another may not feel obligated to follow the ‘natural law’ of the right of the powerful, and exterminate ‘inferior races unworthy of survival.’” As she herself witnessed, the first steps are the abrogation of minority rights and the refusal of asylum to refugees.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98815/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen B. Jones received funding from The National Endowment for the Humanities. She is a registered Democrat and member of the ACLU. </span></em></p>The 20th-century philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote how refugees, in the absence of legal rights, were forced to live in a state of ‘absolute lawlessness.’ Her words matter today.Kathleen B. Jones, Professor Emerita of Women's Studies, San Diego State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/878882017-11-21T14:00:28Z2017-11-21T14:00:28ZPolitics won out over international law in recent UN elections<p>For the first time in the court’s history, the UK will not have a judge sitting at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Christopher Greenwood, who was seeking a second nine-year term, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/nov/20/no-british-judge-on-world-court-for-first-time-in-its-71-year-history">pulled out of the race</a> on November 20, allowing India’s candidate to take the contested seat. This follows weeks of conflict and tension, with a sizeable majority of the UN General Assembly having voted in favour of Judge Dalveer Bhandari. The situation reveals a lot about the internal politics of the UN – because it was politics, not candidate suitability, that determined this recent election.</p>
<p>The UK is one of the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, and that group – the “P5” – has held a vice-like grip on power throughout the UN’s seven decades of existence. The ICJ election is one of the few ways in which the full UN membership has an opportunity to express its dissatisfaction with P5 dominance at the UN; and what is clear is that the dissatisfaction and frustration runs deep.</p>
<p>The problem lies in the fact that the P5 – China, France, Russia, UK, and US – insisted on exceptional powers at the time that the UN was created. The failure of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/league_nations_01.shtml">League of Nations</a> had led to World War II, and those countries that led the defeat of Nazi Germany insisted that they shape the United Nations in such a way as to be able to stop a third world war. The key way in which those countries could ensure that such an aim was met was by holding permanent seats and veto powers at the Security Council, the body given the task of and necessary powers to ensure international peace and security.</p>
<p>But P5 power extends far beyond just the Security Council. The convention of all P5 members having judges sitting at the ICJ has only one previous exception (China, 1967-1985). Until 2006, when the main human rights body was <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/hrc/pages/hrcindex.aspx">reformed</a> and membership rules changed, the P5 held <em>de facto</em> permanent seats, as they continue to do at the Economic and Social Council (<a href="http://www.un.org/en/ecosoc/">ECOSOC</a>). And there are many political and expert bodies where P5 dominance is felt in the room even where membership is for fixed, non-renewable terms.</p>
<p>And P5 dominance is not limited to places where states are represented by diplomats. The UN Secretary-General appoints Under-Secretaries General and Assistant-Secretaries General to head key departments and office. P5 countries have traditionally made it clear which bodies they wish to be headed by their nationals. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195636/original/file-20171121-6061-1df67ui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195636/original/file-20171121-6061-1df67ui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195636/original/file-20171121-6061-1df67ui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195636/original/file-20171121-6061-1df67ui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195636/original/file-20171121-6061-1df67ui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195636/original/file-20171121-6061-1df67ui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195636/original/file-20171121-6061-1df67ui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The P5.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30959622">Mátyás / Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>The US continues to try to ensure that one of its nationals is appointed to head the Department for Political Affairs, a post previously filled by a UK national until the UK took the lead on Humanitarian Affairs. France traditionally leads on Peacekeeping Operations, and Russia recently ensured that its former ambassador to the UN was appointed to head the newly-formed Counter-Terrorism office. Of course, formally those positions are political appointments by the Secretary-General – and António Guterres <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/15/big-powers-clip-u-n-secretary-generals-wings/">has indicated</a> that he may well change the <em>staus quo</em> in this regard. But there are significant grumblings about how the areas with the most clout and reach remain in the hands of P5 nationals.</p>
<p>P5 dominance reflected the geopolitical landscape in 1945, but the reality today is that two of those members, France and the UK, can no longer claim to be amongst the most powerful countries economically, militarily or politically. Russia, similarly cannot claim to compete economically or politically with the likes of Germany, Japan, Brazil and India, although it continues to use its military force internationally in a manner long abandoned by France and the UK.</p>
<p>Therefore, calls to reform the Security Council to reflect today’s global landscape have grown louder with every passing year. And given the near impossibility of reforming P5 powers enshrined in the Charter, as they are able simply <a href="http://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-v/index.html">to veto such changes</a>, large parts of the UN membership have sought otherwise to force changes and reforms wherever possible. Elections are one central way of achieving that aim.</p>
<p>Let us be clear, this election was not about who was the more expert judge; but appointments of independent experts at the UN frequently centre as much on politics as they do on qualifications for the role. Both candidates are excellent and highly-qualified. But this election was about nationality, and represents frustration, protest, and calls for change. And it is likely that other P5 states will face similar challenges to their <em>de facto</em> power in similar elections.</p>
<p>And while there is a need to heed those calls for change, it is unlikely that much will change in practice for some time. It is a great shame for international law and justice that this election was decided for political reasons.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87888/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosa Freedman receives funding from the AHRC, the British Academy, the ESRC, and the Jacob Blaustein Institute.
</span></em></p>UN appointments frequently centre as much on politics as they do on qualifications for the role.Rosa Freedman, Professor of Law, Conflict and Global Development, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/755712017-04-11T12:59:11Z2017-04-11T12:59:11ZFive lessons Brexit negotiators should take from the League of Nations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164862/original/image-20170411-26726-1i3dlxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C361%2C5622%2C3349&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The official opening of the League of Nations, 15 November 1920.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations#/media/File:No-nb_bldsa_5c006.jpg">Wikipedia/A. Frankl - National Library of Norway</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Brexit has few <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21716620-how-new-zealand-coped-loss-preferential-access-its-biggest">precedents</a> in <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-henry-viiis-break-with-rome-tells-us-about-parliaments-role-in-brexit-70078">international history</a>. </p>
<p>Parallels have been drawn to <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/countries/greenland_en">Greenland’s</a> 1985 European Community withdrawal, and Burundi and Gambia abandoning <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/countries/greenland_en">International Criminal Court</a> membership. Yet, the UK’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-linguists-guide-to-the-theresa-may-article-50-letter-75436">decision to leave the European Union</a> is unmatched in recent history. No country has ever withdrawn from an international organisation, potentially cutting ties with the world’s most tight knit common market, on this scale before.</p>
<p>The closest to a relevant parallel is the League of Nations, which dealt with the withdrawal of multiple member states between 1925 and 1939.</p>
<h2>Leaving the league</h2>
<p>The international League of Nations was founded after World War I, dedicated to the prevention of war through disarmament, arbitration and a system of collective security guarantees. </p>
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<p>Like <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2016/577971/EPRS_BRI(2016)577971_EN.pdf">Article 50</a>, the league’s founding text, <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/leagcov.asp">the Covenant of the League of Nations</a>, sets out withdrawal conditions and a two-year notification period. But – <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-eu-referendum-britain-theresa-may-article-50-not-supposed-meant-to-be-used-trigger-giuliano-a7156656.html">as with Article 50</a> – it was never thought that the Convenant’s withdrawal paragraph would be invoked; US President Woodrow Wilson suggested its inclusion to gain approval of the <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/senate-rejects-league-of-nations-nov-19-1919-113006">reticent US Senate</a>. </p>
<p>However, the league’s experience with countries leaving <a href="http://worldatwar.net/timeline/other/league18-46.html">during the interwar period</a> can now offer some valuable lessons for the Brexit process. </p>
<h2>1. Pay your dues</h2>
<p>When Costa Rica notified the League of Nations of its intention to withdraw in 1923, it <a href="http://elibrary.law.psu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1281&context=psilr">forwarded a cheque</a> to cover outstanding membership and incurred expenditures. The departure was a straightforward affair.</p>
<p>By contrast, the 1935 withdrawal of Paraguay was fraught with complications: financial default inhibited it from paying its outstanding league debt. <a href="https://global.britannica.com/event/Chaco-War">A territorial dispute with Bolivia</a> had also led to war in 1933 – even though unjustified military aggression was in violation of the covenant. Paraguay remained in limbo for two years after notification: its benefits were restricted by the league, but no agreement was found over its obligations.</p>
<p>Taking from this, the Brexit negotiators should quickly settle all financial obligations, to avoid a protracted argument over the country’s outstanding debt – rumoured to be around <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21716629-bitter-argument-over-money-looms-multi-billion-euro-exit-charge-could-sink-brexit">€60 billion</a>. If not, the UK could end up fighting for years over something that could be settled from the get go.</p>
<h2>2. Think about future cooperation</h2>
<p>Not all ties can be cut, and countries commonly retain some form of technical cooperation. After Japan <a href="https://iconicphotos.org/2009/06/07/japan-withdraws-from-the-league-of-nations/">withdrew</a> in 1935, it continued to participate in subsidiaries such as the league’s own health organisation, and continued to administer a territory allocated by the league.</p>
<p>The EU and UK could certainly continue to cooperate on shared interests: international terrorism, border security and energy, for example. But a hard Brexit and diplomatic posturing could potentially disrupt the delicate balance of all parties’ interests in these areas.</p>
<h2>3. Don’t forget details</h2>
<p>In 1933 the Nazi regime in Germany <a href="https://www.wdl.org/en/item/11598/">felt its departure</a> from the league would leave it unconstrained in the international realm. However, the country’s <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/weimar-republic-fragility-democracy/politics/treaty-versailles-summaries-specific-articles-politics-treaty">existing disarmament obligations</a> wrecked the withdrawal process. Although the regime paid its debt to the league in full, other obligations – for example, regarding the protection of <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-league-of-nations-and-the-refugees-from-nazi-germany-9781474276634/">religious minorities</a> – allowed the league to consider possible sanctions in case of withdrawal. Unfortunately, the league members never agreed on appropriate sanctions.</p>
<p>While there is no strong analogy here between Germany and the UK, the league experience demonstrates that separate but entangled legal bodies can constrain withdrawal. There has already been heated discussion over how the UK’s departure would impact the <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-creates-a-human-rights-crisis-for-ireland-75220">Good Friday agreements</a> in Northern Ireland and the status of <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-causes-anguish-on-gibraltar-74426">Gibraltar</a>, debates which are bound to continue over the next two years.</p>
<h2>4. Work within the framework</h2>
<p>For an organisation that had 58 members at its height, the list of league withdrawals is damning. Larger countries such as Germany, Japan and Italy as well as the smaller Guatemala and El Salvador all left the organisation, leaving it with just 34 member nations at the time of its final demise in 1947.</p>
<p>In 1919, Wilson <a href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.167271">thought</a> that “the fetish of state sovereignty” would be the chief obstacle to the league’s success – and in some ways he was right. Though the departures of Guatemala and El Salvador were a consequence of the league’s waning influence in the 1930s, the cases of Germany, Japan and Italy reveal a different story. They were mid-sized countries with international ambitions but increasingly at odds with the league’s method of public deliberation and consensus-based governance. Instead, the trio opted for unilateral action and a confrontational style of diplomacy. </p>
<p>These countries were adamant to retain their national sovereignty, to “take back control”. But rather than putting these countries on a course for cooperation, it led to confrontation, eventually resulting in World War II.</p>
<h2>5. Something might go wrong</h2>
<p>The importance of a future relationship makes a complete disruption of relations between the EU and the UK unlikely. But mutual dependency may falter if there is a fundamental disagreement, and a dispute could lead to trade barriers and retaliations. While the league was chiefly a political organisation, the EU represents an integrated political and economic entity which could make the UK’s life outside isolated and difficult.</p>
<p>While there are no perfect analogies, the League of Nations experience shows just how complicated it can be to withdraw from an international organisation. The importance of future relations makes goodwill from both sides essential to conclude an agreement on the terms of departure – and both the UK and EU would do well to heed these lessons going forward.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75571/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Quincy R. Cloet does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Both the EU and UK would do well to heed the lessons of the League of Nations when it comes to membership withdrawal.Quincy R. Cloet, PhD Candidate, Aberystwyth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/592842016-10-06T11:34:41Z2016-10-06T11:34:41ZWhy is the United Nations still so misunderstood?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140696/original/image-20161006-14709-x8dkll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-423802144/stock-photo-geneva-switzerland-12-march-2016-the-palace-of-nations-headquarters-of-the-united-nations-in-geneva-switzerland-the-un-was-established-in-geneva-in-1947-and-this-is-the-second-largest.html?src=BTZ7ceTyp7rVEwG3aeDZLw-1-25">Barry Tuck via Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UN’s next secretary general has apparently been chosen. Once confirmed as Ban Ki-Moon’s successor, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-un-ended-up-with-antonio-guterres-as-its-new-secretary-general-66625">António Guterres</a> will take the helm of one of the world’s great institutions – albeit one that’s constantly maligned, belittled, and misunderstood.</p>
<p>A lot of this negativity will fall to him to deal with. Debates about the UN and its future usually revolve around the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/sc/">Security Council</a> and the secretary general. That’s where the power is, so that’s where change is needed, runs the argument.</p>
<p>So it went during the process by which Guterres was selected, as a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/opinion/sunday/i-love-the-un-but-it-is-failing.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0">chorus</a> of former insiders appealed for the appointment of a tough, liberated new leader. These critics argued that the UN was <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/10/un-failing-league-of-nations-isis-boko-haram">in danger of collapsing</a> into diplomatic irrelevance and irretrievable internal dysfunction. </p>
<p>Some believe a reformed UN leadership could perhaps impose a ceasefire in Syria, and even protect civilians globally against the self-interest of the great powers, or the <a href="https://theconversation.com/could-the-era-of-immunity-for-un-personnel-be-about-to-end-50610">abuses of blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers</a>.</p>
<p>Coming from frustrated veterans of the fusty inner sanctums of the UN, the calls for sunlight and change are understandable. Yes, the UN needs reform. But as we, together with many colleagues, suggest in a <a href="http://www.simon-jackson.eu/publication_2137.html">forthcoming book</a>, this reform has to start from an accurate sense of what the UN actually is – and critically, where it began.</p>
<p>The UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations, is often misremembered as an irrelevant, hapless victim of realpolitik. But thanks to British diplomats such as its first secretary general, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhn-02I123k">Sir Eric Drummond</a>, its secretariat came into being as an internationalist body organised by area of expertise, not by national delegation. </p>
<p>After it was opened in 1920, the league became a vibrant forum for the internationalisation of world politics, and its Geneva headquarters gave non-state actors from Palestine to the Pacific a forum for protest. Its secretariat regularly hauled the world’s great powers over the diplomatic coals while the global press took notes.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140697/original/image-20161006-14732-psmhr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140697/original/image-20161006-14732-psmhr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140697/original/image-20161006-14732-psmhr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140697/original/image-20161006-14732-psmhr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140697/original/image-20161006-14732-psmhr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140697/original/image-20161006-14732-psmhr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140697/original/image-20161006-14732-psmhr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The opening of the League of Nations in 1920.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ANo-nb_bldsa_5c006.jpg">National Library of Norway/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>In the 1930s, the league’s international political role famously declined and collapsed in the face of fascism. But its legacy lives on. Its technical bodies developed the expertise and capacity in health and economics that was later transferred to the UN, and in updated and much-changed versions – from the International Labour Organisation to the International Court of Justice and the World Health Organisation – these institutions underpin our systems of global governance today.</p>
<h2>All things to all people</h2>
<p>It makes no sense for the UN’s critics to focus only on the Security Council and the nominations for secretary general. At best, this perpetuates a view of the UN as a passive institution without the grit – <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-cant-the-un-protect-civilians-in-places-like-syria-49792">or the guns</a> – to solve the world’s problems.</p>
<p>But the UN is not a unified whole. It’s not a top-down machine, and nor is it a mere byproduct of great power interactions. Instead, it’s a highly complex system made up of a mass of agencies and structures, from the <a href="http://www.unep.org/">UN Environment Programme</a> to the <a href="http://www.undp.org/">UN Development Programme</a>, each with their own officers, mandates and dynamics. Through these institutions the UN embeds and monitors global policies in myriad areas from health reform to humanitarian aid to climate change. This is where most of its work is done – 24 hours a day, around the world.</p>
<p>Similarly, the UN is often ridiculed for its accumulated traditions, which have supposedly condemned it to be little more than a ponderous anachronism. But the truth is that it was always going to take decades for its <a href="http://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/">charter</a> and its careful institutional practices to establish the norms that now underpin our international society. </p>
<p>Its deliberative, representative forum, the General Assembly, has debated and denounced the behaviour of states according to these accumulating norms since <a href="http://www.matthewconnelly.net/ADR_page.html">the era of decolonisation</a>. Its success in doing so means that when the world faces challenges, the world still looks to UN agencies and their expert staff for solutions. </p>
<p>When European states seek to expel refugees, it’s to the <a href="https://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53388">UNHCR</a> that the world turns for authoritative opinion, and when the warring parties in Syria try to talk once again (behind closed doors), it’s at the <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/syria-talks-set-struggle-despite-foreign-pressure-174955112.html;_ylt=A0LEVvXR8udWH14AukAnnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTEzdHV2ZmlzBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDRkZSVkJLXzEEc2VjA3Nj">UN in Geneva</a> where they sit down.</p>
<p>Indeed, taken as a whole, the UN has become <a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/09/united-nations-still-popular-in-most-countries/">genuinely popular</a> among most of the international public. Ever more underrepresented people embrace it as it works with civil society actors to pull groups and individuals into the business of making and enacting policy. </p>
<p>Every time the September General Assembly rolls around, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/nyregion/forget-coachella-and-bonnaroo-the-un-is-the-place-to-be.html?_r=0">record</a> numbers of people flock to New York to participate in events such as the <a href="http://mashable.com/sgs/">Social Good Summit</a>, an annual initiative to open more of the UN’s many doors to the general public. There’s power in such practices too, even if they are far from the Security Council or the secretary general’s office.</p>
<p>This broad popularity transcends the theatre of the Security Council or the globetrotting of the secretary general. Ordinary people can use the UN as a lab for testing ideas, political claims and best practices across the spectrum of long term global governance, not just as a venue for hashing out rapid responses to immediate geopolitical crises.</p>
<h2>The long view</h2>
<p>Even if the conflicts that roil the world today regularly involve non-state actors, the world is still primarily ordered by states. This means international organisations such as the UN don’t so much issue orders as offer tools for states and other actors to take up, develop and use. </p>
<p>Specific UN mandates, the fruit of diplomatic compromise between member states, are left open to interpretation to allow soldiers and politicians to adapt to situations on the ground. They also often run for years. </p>
<p>Both the UN’s hard-earned successes and its <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/world/africa/united-nations-peacekeepers-central-african-republic.html">appalling failures</a> should be assessed across the breadth and duration of its efforts, rather than just on the terms of reference laid out in deliberately woolly resolutions.</p>
<p>Like the League of Nations before it, the UN has hosted and amplified global conversations about the future of humanity, often in spite of the intentions of the great powers and usually well beyond the Security Council or the secretary general’s office. These are the conversations that generate the principles and practices the world needs to move forward.</p>
<p>Clearly, the UN is no “<a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8974.html">enchanted palace</a>”; no international organisation ever has been. Plainly, it has its closed diplomatic backrooms and all the problems that that entails. It is a vast edifice, but it has a great many open doors. And in a global context of seemingly intractable war and the onrushing crisis of climate change, it remains the ultimate and vital arena for monitoring the global balance of power and adjudicating international relations as best we can.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59284/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Jackson receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust as an Early Career Fellow. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alanna O'Malley receives funding from the Gerda Henkel Stiftung. </span></em></p>Like the League of Nations before it, the UN is often dismissed as a powerless talking shop or a proxy for the great powers. It’s much more than that.Simon Jackson, Assistant Professor in Modern Middle Eastern History, University of BirminghamAlanna O'Malley, Assistant Professor of International Studies, Leiden UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/648472016-09-27T06:43:16Z2016-09-27T06:43:16ZWhen world leaders thought you shouldn’t need passports or visas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138965/original/image-20160923-29916-b0qghu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">These days neither the public nor governments consider passports as a serious obstacle to freedom of movement.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/yohmi/4617671697/">Yohmi/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the age of heavily <a href="https://theconversation.com/world-leaders-lack-the-political-courage-to-agree-a-fair-global-share-of-migration-65679">restricted migration</a>, passport control seems a natural prerogative of the state. The idea of abolishing passports is almost unthinkable. But in the 20th century, governments considered their “total abolition” as an important goal, and even discussed the issue at several international conferences.</p>
<p>The first <a href="http://biblio-archive.unog.ch/Dateien/CouncilMSD/C-641-M-230-1925-VIII_EN.pdf">passport conference</a> was held in Paris in 1920, under the auspices of the League of Nations (the predecessor of the United Nations). Part of the Committee on Communication and Transit’s aim was to restore the pre-war regime of freedom of movement. </p>
<p>Indeed, for much of the 19th century, as an International Labour Organisation report <a href="http://staging.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/1922/22B09_2_engl.pdf">stated</a> in 1922:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Migration was generally speaking, unhindered and each emigrant could decide on the time of his departure, his arrival or his return, to suit his own convenience. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the World War I brought harsh restrictions on freedom of movement. </p>
<p>In 1914, warring states France, Germany, and Italy were the first to make passports mandatory, a measure rapidly followed by others, including the neutral states of Spain, Denmark and Switzerland. </p>
<p>At the end of the war, the regime of obligatory passports was widespread. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which established the League of Nations, <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/leagcov.asp#art23">stipulated</a> that member states commit to “secure and maintain freedom of communications and of transit”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139289/original/image-20160926-31856-sqy9s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139289/original/image-20160926-31856-sqy9s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139289/original/image-20160926-31856-sqy9s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=214&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139289/original/image-20160926-31856-sqy9s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=214&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139289/original/image-20160926-31856-sqy9s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=214&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139289/original/image-20160926-31856-sqy9s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139289/original/image-20160926-31856-sqy9s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139289/original/image-20160926-31856-sqy9s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Freedom of movement was on the agenda at the Treaty of Versailles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Imperial War Museum London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fences are easier to build than to dismantle. The 1920 Paris conference recognised that restrictions on freedom of movement affect “personal relations between the peoples of various countries” and “constitute a serious obstacle to the resumption of normal intercourse and to the economic recovery of the world”.</p>
<p>But its delegates also assumed that security concerns prevented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>for the time being, the total abolition of restrictions and the complete return to pre-war conditions which the Conference hopes, nevertheless, to see gradually re-established in the near future. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>To facilitate freedom of movement, participants agreed instead to establish a uniform, international passport, issued for a single journey or for a period two years. This is how we ended up with the format of the passports we use today.</p>
<p>Participants also decided to abolish exit visas and decrease the cost of entry visas.</p>
<h2>Close but no cigar</h2>
<p>During the conferences that followed, several resolutions again highlighted the goal of abolishing passports, but concluded that the time was not yet right. In 1924, the <a href="https://books.google.fr/books/about/International_Conference_of_Emigration_a.html?id=xEtKnAEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">International Conference of Emigration and Immigration</a> in Rome maintained that “the necessity of obtaining passports should be abolished as soon as possible” but in the meantime advocated other measures to facilitate travel. These measures included an increase in the number of offices delivering passports, allowing emigrants to save time and money.</p>
<p>In Geneva in 1926, Polish delegate, <a href="https://audiovis.nac.gov.pl/obraz/97650/">Franciszek Sokal</a>, opened proceedings by bluntly asking the parties to adopt “as a general rule that all States Members of the League of Nations should abolish passports”. </p>
<p>At that time, passports and visas were still regarded as a serious obstacle to freedom of movement, as a Mr Junod from the International Chamber of Commerce <a href="http://biblio-archive.unog.ch/Dateien/CouncilMSD/C-423-M-156-1926-VIII_EN.pdf">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Could not the Conference adopt a resolution contemplating the abolition of passports at the earliest possible date? Public opinion would regard this as a step in the right direction.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But by then, most governments had already adopted the uniform passport and some of them saw it as an important document that was meant to protect emigrants. As the Italian delegate reminded the conference that conditions had changed after the war and the passport was “particularly necessary as an identification document for workers and their families; it provided them with the protection they needed, enabled them to obtain permits of sojourn.” </p>
<p>Another delegate alluded to the Soviet Union when he refused to restore the pre-war regime. He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>conditions had changed so much since the war that everyone had to take into consideration a good many things they could formerly ignore.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139288/original/image-20160926-31853-skgke3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139288/original/image-20160926-31853-skgke3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139288/original/image-20160926-31853-skgke3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139288/original/image-20160926-31853-skgke3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139288/original/image-20160926-31853-skgke3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139288/original/image-20160926-31853-skgke3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139288/original/image-20160926-31853-skgke3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139288/original/image-20160926-31853-skgke3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Passports were never supposed to be forever.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Discussions about passport abolition resumed after World War II. </p>
<p>In 1947, the first problem considered at an expert meeting preparing for the <a href="http://repository.un.org/handle/11176/206887">UN World Conference on Passports and Frontier Formalities</a>, was “the possibility of a return to the regime which existed before 1914 involving as a general rule the abolition of any requirement that travelers should carry passports”. </p>
<p>But delegates ultimately decided that a return to a passport-free world could only happen alongside a return to the global conditions that prevailed before the start of the first world war. By 1947, that was a distant dream. The experts advised instead a series of bilateral and multilateral agreements to attain this goal.</p>
<p>World leaders were still talking about banning passports as late as 1963, when the <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/NL6/302/85/PDF/NL630285.pdf?OpenElement">UN Conference on International Travel and Tourism</a> recognised “the desirability, from both an economic and social point, of progressively freer international travel”. Once again, it was estimated that “it is not feasible to recommend the abolition of passports on a world-wide basis.”</p>
<p>Now, neither the public nor governments consider passports as a serious obstacle to freedom of movement, though any would-be traveller from <a href="http://www.atlasandboots.com/best-passport-to-have/">Yemen, Afghanistan or Somalia</a> would no doubt argue differently.</p>
<p>It takes less than a century, it seems, to see the absence of freedom as a natural condition.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64847/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Speranta Dumitru does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the 20th century, governments considered the “total abolition” of passports as an important goal and discussed the issue in several international conferences.Speranta Dumitru, Associate Professor of Political Sciences, Université Paris CitéLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/526552016-02-23T19:05:05Z2016-02-23T19:05:05ZThe post-colonial caliphate: Islamic State and the memory of Sykes-Picot<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109605/original/image-20160129-27340-62w6x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Map of the Sykes–Picot Agreement showing Eastern Turkey in Asia, Syria and Western Persia, and areas of control and influence agreed between the British and the French in May 1916.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMPK1-426_Sykes_Picot_Agreement_Map_signed_8_May_1916.jpg">Royal Geographical Society via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Since announcing its arrival as a global force in June 2014 with the declaration of a caliphate on territory captured in Iraq and Syria, jihadist group Islamic State has shocked the world with its brutality.</em></p>
<p><em>Our series has been examining the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/understanding-islamic-state">historic and cultural forces behind the rise of these jihadists</a>. Today, historian James Renton looks at the fateful 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, which was pointedly denounced by Islamic State in the first video it released.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Ever since Islamic State (IS) spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-iraq-idUSKBN0F40SL20140630">announced the establishment of a caliphate</a> on June 29, 2014, analysts have been busy trying to explain its aims and origins. </p>
<p>Much of the discussion has concentrated on the IS leadership’s theology – an apocalyptic philosophy that <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-islamic-state-is-based-on-religion-why-is-it-so-violent-52070">seeks a return to an imagined pristine Islam</a> of the religion’s founders. But this focus has led to a neglect of the group’s self-declared political aims. </p>
<p>For all the importance of religion in the way IS functions <a href="https://theconversation.com/islamic-state-lays-claim-to-muslim-theological-tradition-and-turns-it-on-its-head-53225">and justifies itself</a>, we can fully understand the caliphate only if we pay close attention to the public explanations – the modernist manifestos – of those at the helm of its overall political purpose. </p>
<p>Viewed from this perspective, the caliphate appears primarily as an attempt to free the ummah – the global Muslim community – from the legacies of European colonialism.</p>
<p>The leaders of IS do not see their caliphate as an exercise in theocracy for its own sake, but as an attempt at post-colonial emancipation.</p>
<h2>Looking right back</h2>
<p>Certainly, the very name adopted by the declared leader of the caliphate suggests an acute preoccupation with a specifically religious mission that harks back to the early years of Islam. </p>
<p>Originally known as Ibrahim bin Awwad bin Ibrahim al-Badri al-Samarra’i (or variations thereof), he took on, long before the summer of 2014, the pseudonym Abu Bakr, the name of the first caliph (the successor to Muhammad as the religious and political leader of the ummah).</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110935/original/image-20160210-12178-1vrnf2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110935/original/image-20160210-12178-1vrnf2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110935/original/image-20160210-12178-1vrnf2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110935/original/image-20160210-12178-1vrnf2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110935/original/image-20160210-12178-1vrnf2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110935/original/image-20160210-12178-1vrnf2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110935/original/image-20160210-12178-1vrnf2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Briton Sir Mark Sykes agreed on terms with his French counterpart, François Georges-Picot, for dividing up the region after WWI.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Mark_Sykes00.jpg">Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ruling in the years 632-4, Abu Bakr put an end to dissent against the new Islamic system in its Arabian heartlands. He established the caliphate as an expansionist Muslim empire with military campaigns in, the sources suggest, present-day Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Israel-Palestine. </p>
<p>As a declaration of intent, this choice of name by IS’s leader – whose full moniker became, alongside the title Caliph Ibrahim, <a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/documents/baghdadi-caliph.pdf">Abu Bakr al-Husayni al-Qurashi al-Baghdadi</a> – seems to encapsulate much of what we need to know about the new caliphate’s ambitions. </p>
<p>Al-Adnani’s <a href="https://ia902505.us.archive.org/28/items/poa_25984/EN.pdf">founding proclamation</a> made a point of celebrating the military victories of the first decades of Islam and how the ummah then “filled the earth with justice … and ruled the world for centuries”. This success, he argued, was the result of nothing more than faith in Allah and the ummah’s adherence to the guidance of the Prophet Muhammad.</p>
<p>But the conquest of land and the establishment of a Muslim empire – or state, as those behind the new caliphate prefer to call it – is a means to a very specific end. It is not an end in itself. </p>
<h2>Anglo-French infamy</h2>
<p>According to al-Adnani, the caliphate is needed to take the ummah out of a condition of disgrace, humiliation and rule under the “vilest of all people”. Al-Baghdadi, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28116846">speaking two days after</a> he was pronounced caliph, was much more <a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/documents/baghdadi-caliph.pdf">specific</a>. </p>
<p>The fall of the last caliphate – and, with it, the loss of a state – led to the humiliation and disempowerment of Muslims around the globe, he said. And this condition of statelessness allowed “the disbelievers” to occupy Muslim lands, install their agents as authoritarian rulers and spread false Western doctrines.</p>
<p>Al-Baghdadi’s vague narrative refers to the story of the dissolution after the first world war of the Ottoman Empire, which had governed much of Western Asia for four centuries. </p>
<p>In its stead, the British and French empires took over significant parts of the region and remained for decades. When their rule came to an end, these colonial states did their best to leave behind successor regimes that would serve British and French interests and those of the wider West.</p>
<p>For IS leaders, these colonial machinations have left the ummah floundering ever since because they took away the essence of power in the contemporary world: sovereignty – territorially based political independence. </p>
<p>The caliphate is urgently needed, al-Baghdadi argues, to rectify this harmful absence. A similar argument for a caliphate, though made with a very different type of state in mind, was articulated by the UK-based scholar <a href="http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/recalling-the-caliphate/">S. Sayyid</a> in 2014.</p>
<p>The most explicit evidence of this political objective’s primacy is to be found in the new caliphate’s propaganda, which has been such an important part of the IS project. </p>
<p>To coincide with the announcement of the caliphate, IS released a video entitled “<a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d43_1404046312">The End of Sykes-Picot</a>”. Signed in May 1916, the Sykes-Picot agreement was a secret <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MPK1-426_Sykes_Picot_Agreement_Map_signed_8_May_1916.jpg?uselang=en-gb">Anglo-French plan</a> for dividing the Asian Ottoman Empire into spheres of influence and zones of direct rule for the two European empires. </p>
<p>The Bolsheviks discovered the agreement in the Russian state archives soon after they took power in November 1917 and revealed its contents to the world.</p>
<h2>The Sykes-Picot agreement</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
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<span class="caption">The French negotiator of the Sykes-Picot agreement, François Georges-Picot.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFran%C3%A7ois_Georges-Picot.JPG">Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>The Sykes-Picot agreement did not set out the borders of the states that replaced the Ottoman Empire, as the video suggests. But this error is beside the point if we want to understand the significance of the agreement for IS, and what it tells us about its caliphate. </p>
<p>In the Middle East, Sykes-Picot became shorthand for a whole narrative of Western betrayal and conspiracy in the region. But it also came to stand for the specific European colonial process of robbing the peoples of the region of their sovereignty. </p>
<p>And it is IS’s declared goal to undo this process. This is why “The End of Sykes-Picot”, above any other possible subject matter for an inaugural film, had to accompany the declaration of the caliphate.</p>
<p>For al-Baghdadi, sovereignty and Islam cannot be separated; thus the need for an Islamic state. He cannot use the term empire, even though it more accurately describes the global expansionist aims of his caliphate. </p>
<p>This is not just a question of semantics; it goes to the heart of the purpose of IS. The caliphate is needed, its leadership contends, to end the consequences of European empire, of colonialism. It is an effort to finally break away from the colonial condition; an attempt at a new post-colonial ummah.</p>
<p>Liberty from colonialism and sovereignty go hand in hand. The post-1918 world order embodied in the League of Nations and its successor, the United Nations, places the idea of sovereignty at the centre of how we understand power today. Within this system, the absence of a state is the absence of power. </p>
<p>The military defeat of IS and its loss of territory would, of course, make sovereignty, and thus the caliphate, impossible. But this defeat will not solve the problem of the sense of powerlessness that fuelled the 2014 caliphate in the first place; it will only compound it. </p>
<p>The real long-term challenge that faces opponents of IS, therefore, is not the overthrow of the caliphate – as difficult as that might be – or even to defeat “extremism”. It is, rather, to overcome the narrative at the centre of IS’s call to arms: Muslim alienation from the world system. </p>
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<p><em>This is the seventh article in our series on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/understanding-islamic-state">historical roots of Islamic State</a>. <a href="http://bit.ly/UnderstandingIS">Download our special report</a> collating the whole the series.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52655/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Renton has received funding from the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council for a monograph that he is writing on the idea of the Middle East and its consequences.</span></em></p>The leaders of Islamic State do not see their caliphate as an exercise in theocracy for its own sake, but as an attempt at post-colonial emancipation.James Renton, Reader in History, Edge Hill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.