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1 Historical Background: Formative Phases of International Organization during the Pre–UN Period
- Indiana University Press
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1 Historical Background: Formative Phases of International Organization during the Pre–UN Period • Early History of International Organization • Early Examples of International Natural Resource Management • The League of Nations • Assessment In order to understand contemporary patterns of global resource management, it is useful to examine the historical evolution of the concept of international organization as it exists today. For this purpose, this chapter first reviews the roots and early history of international organization. It also introduces early organizational forms set up to manage natural resources. Next, this chapter examines the period of the League of Nations, with particular attention to natural resource regulation and access to raw materials. Early History of International Organization Before the nineteenth century, forms of international organization were relatively rare. In ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, there are a few known cases of independent communities that collaborated in the management of rivers for agricultural purposes, but their cooperation lacked organizational structure. Moreover, conflicts between these communities soon ended any form of cooperation.1 In ancient Greece, some forms of international organization existed, the political confederations being the most advanced. These leagues of cities had councils that were authorized to make majority decisions and sometimes even had an assembly that could levy contributions for military expenditure. Also in ancient Italy primitive forms of international organization existed. Yet the rise of the Roman empire ended this development . In the Middle Ages, examples of international organization include the Hanseatic League, a trade coalition of cities in the North of Europe, and the league Historical Background 15 of Swiss cantons (the Everlasting League), which was set up for defensive purposes. Any form of international cooperation between states, however, proved impossible due to continuous power struggles between the European empires. From the seventeenth century on, international relations were based on the principle of the balance of power, which in practice could only be challenged by waging war.2 Averse to the continuing threat of war, various seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury philosophers elaborated on the idea of a general peace organization. As early as 1623, a French monk named Émeric Crucé proposed that a federation of states be established consisting of a council of ambassadors that could settle disputes between members.3 Around the same time, the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius suggested that “it would be advantageous, indeed in a degree necessary, to hold certain conferences of Christian powers, where those who have no interest at stake may settle the disputes of others, and where, in fact, steps may be taken to compel parties to accept peace on fair terms.”4 More than half a century later, William Penn went a step further and proposed a federal union or “European diet.” This diet was to have a parliament with broad powers. The number of representatives of each state in the parliament was to be determined by the state’s income. The idea of an international court of arbitration was further elaborated by Abbé de Saint-Pierre. In his 1713 book entitled Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe, he introduced the idea of a “union of sovereigns” for the settlement of legal disputes and assigned decision-making functions to the union’s principal organ, the congress of envoys. Rousseau’s “federation of states” as well as Kant’s “alliance of peace” or “league of nations” built on this idea.5 When the modern concept of international organization finally emerged in the nineteenth century, it did so as a response to political needs rather than as a matter of ideology. For present purposes, it suffices to identify three main streams in the evolution of international organization: the Concert of Europe, the Hague system, and public international unions. The Concert of Europe The Concert of Europe refers to the system of multilateral high-level political conferences that replaced the system of predominantly bilateral consultations between states. This system goes back to the Congress of Vienna, which was convened in the period November 1814 to June 1815. The Congress of Vienna aimed to reshape the European order after the defeat of the French emperor Napoleon. In order to prevent a relapse into war, the congress sought to create a balance of power between the European states. The efforts of the European powers resulted in the 1815 Treaty of Paris, which set new borders for the European continent and established the Quadruple Alliance among Great Britain, Prussia, Austria, and Russia. The Congress of Vienna proved significant in more than one way. It marked the beginning of...