League of Nations

This project examines the links between the League of Nations - one of the first large-scale endeavours in intergovernmental organisation - and the European institutions created in the wake of the Second World War. While the United Nations and its agencies inherited much from the League in terms of assets, responsibilities, and staff, this project instead looks at the unexplored links to those European organisations that followed, with particular focus on the Council of Europe, the European Coal and Steel Community, and the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation. The League of Nations, despite its global aspirations, was, primarily, a European institution, headquartered in a European city, and staffed by a predominantly European workforce, and thus, alongside its legacy, occupies an important role in the history of European integration in the twentieth century.

The main focus of this project centres on the ways in which the League of Nations - oft referred to as a ‘great experiment’ in the realm of intergovernmental administration - provided a model or case study for international civil service. The League’s Secretariat was one of the first of its kind, and this project interrogates how its extensive experience was drawn upon by these European organisations, and influenced the development of their own administrations. From structural precedent and the approach to public relations, to staff recruitment and official languages, this research will demonstrate how the League, despite its notoriously ‘failed’ reputation, was able to influence European integration post-war.