2.4 League of Nations (1919/1920-1946)

The birth: the First World War's shock + Wilson's fourteenth point → the Covenant of the League (Paris Peace Conference; part of the Treaty of Versailles, 28 April 1919; in force 10 January 1920) — the world's first general political organization with a standing machinery: the Assembly (all members), the Council (the great powers' permanent seats + elected members), the Secretariat (the first international civil service), and the Permanent Court of International Justice (1922) — plus the specialized cooperation beginnings (the ILO born beside the League; the health and opium committees). The Covenant's design: collective security through the dispute-settlement machinery (the peaceful-settlement obligations; the arbitral/judicial settlement or inquiry before war; the cooling- off periods); Article 10 (territorial integrity's guarantee); Article 11 (any war a matter of concern to all); Article 16 (the aggressor's economic and diplomatic sanctions — the automatic collective response's first text). The League's failures (the exam's list): (i) the absent powers — the US never joining (the Senate's rejection), Germany and USSR only intermittently (joining late, leaving early), Japan and Italy walking out after their aggressions (Manchuria 1931; Ethiopia 1935-36 — the sanctions' failure the League's epitaph); (ii) unanimity — the Council and Assembly's rule giving every member a veto on action; (iii) the no-armed-force problem — no military machinery of its own (the Bryn-report era's proposals…