Some Problems of Article XXIV of the Covenant1

The majority of the early schemes for a general international organization, or League of Nations, before the Covenant envisaged its functions as principally negative—chiefly the general function of preventing war by peaceful settlement of international disputes. Little or no attention was paid before the Covenant to potentialities of positive and coördinated international action. This is all the more remarkable in view of the growing number of spheres to which international action had already been extended. Apart from Schücking and Mr. L. Woolf, only the proposals of the triumvirate of the “Union des Associations Internationales,” M. Fried, M. Paul Otlet, and M. La Fontaine, seriously urged the necessity of rational coördination and positive coöperation. Unfortunately, before the war these proposals failed to receive the serious attention which they merited. The object of the Union was well founded. Already by 1914, there existed over twenty “public unions” and nearly 150 “private associations;” while the growth in the number of international conferences revealed the volume of international activity. Moreover, the dispersion of this activity and the lack of coördination had led to unfortunate overlapping. Three active organizations were occupied with the international regulation of railways, and two with agriculture. The scientific unions worked independently of any comprehensive plan.But the absence of coördination was not the only weakness apparent in the pre-war situation. The independence of each organization and the lack of a central authority increased the difficulties of working. Elaborate negotiations necessarily preceded the summoning of an international conference, even though the conventional constitution provided for periodic but regular meetings. Further, with the exception of one or two of the most powerful unions, the force of the influence which could be brought to bear on governments was weakened by the isolation.of each union. Finally, the absence of a collective political authority often barred the way to progress in international technical organization.