The changing role of international organisations: the league and the UN, 1919–c2011 — timeline

Key topic 1 · The creation and successes of the League, 1919–29

Wilson, the Covenant and the structure of the League

1919

The Covenant is written into the Treaty of Versailles as its first part. Why this date: It ties the League legally to a settlement its future opponents regarded as unjust.

March 1920

The United States Senate rejects the Treaty; America never joins. Why this date: The organisation begins without the largest economy in the world, which weakens every sanction it can impose.

1926

Germany joins the League and is given a permanent Council seat. Why this date: It shows the organisation working as intended in the 1920s, which is what makes the 1930s a change rather than a constant.

The successes of the 1920s and the agencies

1920–21

The Aaland Islands and Upper Silesia are settled by League decision. Why this date: Both disputes involved small states willing to accept an award, which is the pattern in every 1920s success.

1922

The Nansen passport is introduced for stateless refugees. Why this date: It is the League's most durable single achievement and it addressed a problem no single state could solve.

1923

Italy bombards and occupies Corfu; the dispute is settled outside the League on Italian terms. Why this date: A great power refused the League's jurisdiction and was accommodated twelve years before Abyssinia.

1925

Greece withdraws from Bulgaria on League instruction and pays compensation. Why this date: Greece complained that a great power would not have been treated the same way, and the 1930s proved the complaint correct.

Key topic 2 · The League challenged, 1930–39

The great powers, the veto and the failure to curb the dictators

1933

Germany and Japan both leave the League. Why this date: It demonstrates that departure was costless, which removes the League's principal hold over a member.

1934

The Soviet Union joins the League. Why this date: Membership was still valued in the mid-1930s, which complicates any account of the organisation as already dead.

1937

Italy leaves the League after the Abyssinian crisis. Why this date: The third of the aggressor states departs without penalty, four years after the first two.

Manchuria and Abyssinia

September 1931

Japanese officers stage the Mukden Incident and occupy Manchuria. Why this date: It is the first test of the League against a great power, and the response is an inquiry.

February 1933

The League adopts the Lytton Report; Japan gives notice of withdrawal, and no sanctions follow. Why this date: A finding without enforcement establishes what condemnation is worth on its own.

October 1935

Italy invades Abyssinia; the League names a great power as aggressor and imposes sanctions excluding oil. Why this date: The exclusions show that the sanctioning states did not intend the measures to be decisive.

December 1935

The Hoare-Laval Pact is leaked and both ministers resign. Why this date: The League's two leading members were caught negotiating to give the victim away while their own sanctions ran.

The specialised agencies continue

1926

The Slavery Convention obliges signatories to suppress the slave trade and work towards abolition. Why this date: It shows the League legislating internationally in a field where great-power interests were not engaged.

1930s

The health, labour, refugee, drugs and child welfare bodies continue working through the decade of political failure. Why this date: The Council's paralysis did not stop the technical work, which is the strand's central claim.

1946

Much of the League's technical work is transferred to the United Nations rather than abolished. Why this date: States that had seen the League fail kept its agencies, which is the strongest evidence that this half of it worked.

Key topic 3 · Setting up the United Nations Organisation and its work to 1964

The UN Charter and its structural problems

June 1945

The Charter is signed at San Francisco with a Security Council veto for five permanent members. Why this date: The veto was built in deliberately, to keep the great powers inside an organisation the League had lost them from.

December 1948

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is adopted by the General Assembly. Why this date: It creates a standard rather than an obligation, and it begins the argument about what other states may do about a government's treatment of its own people.

1950

The Uniting for Peace resolution allows the Assembly to recommend measures when the Council is blocked. Why this date: It is an attempt to work round the veto, and its recommendations are not binding.

The specialised agencies: ILO, WHO, FAO, UNESCO, UNICEF

1945–48

FAO, UNESCO, UNICEF and WHO are founded, and the ILO continues from the League. Why this date: The technical system is built into the United Nations from the start rather than added later.

1967

WHO intensifies the smallpox eradication programme; the disease is endemic in over thirty countries. Why this date: It begins the only successful eradication of a human disease, at the height of the Cold War.

1977 and 1980

The last naturally occurring case is recorded in Somalia; eradication is certified. Why this date: A United Nations agency achieved this while the Security Council was paralysed, which is the option's strongest single fact.

Palestine, Korea and the Congo

November 1947

The General Assembly adopts the partition plan for Palestine; it cannot be implemented. Why this date: It shows the organisation able to confer authority on a settlement and unable to impose one.

June 1950

The Security Council authorises assistance to South Korea during a Soviet boycott. Why this date: The only major Cold War authorisation of force happened because a permanent member was absent, which measures how narrow the condition was.

1960–64

The Congo operation deploys at scale into an ambiguous mandate and a civil war. Why this date: It defines the limits of peacekeeping without clear authority or great-power agreement.

September 1961

Dag Hammarskjöld is killed in an air crash on a Congo peace mission. Why this date: A serving Secretary-General died on operations, which measures what acting without consent could cost.

Key topic 4 · The UN challenged, 1967–89

Resolutions 242 and 338, and Lebanon

November 1967

Resolution 242 is adopted with English and French texts that differ on which territories. Why this date: The deliberate ambiguity made agreement possible and enforcement impossible, and both effects lasted decades.

October 1973

Resolution 338 calls for a ceasefire and the implementation of 242 in all its parts. Why this date: It restates the formula without resolving the ambiguity, which shows the problem being carried forward.

1978

UNIFIL is deployed in southern Lebanon with a mandate to restore peace and assist a government that could not act there. Why this date: It is a mandate written for a situation that did not exist, which is the recurring peacekeeping problem.

1982

The Israeli invasion passes through the UNIFIL area. Why this date: A lightly armed force with a consent-based mandate cannot stop an invasion, and was never equipped to.

Namibia and the problem of the Permanent Five

1966

The General Assembly terminates South Africa's mandate over the territory and renames it Namibia. Why this date: It establishes the legal position twenty-three years before anything could be done about it.

1978

Security Council Resolution 435 sets out a full plan for a ceasefire, elections and independence. Why this date: The plan that worked in 1989 existed in 1978 and was unusable for eleven years.

1988

Negotiations link Cuban withdrawal from Angola to South African withdrawal from Namibia. Why this date: The change is external to Namibia and follows the winding down of the Cold War.

1989–90

UNTAG supervises the transition; Namibia becomes independent in March 1990. Why this date: The same plan succeeded in eighteen months once the permanent members wanted the same outcome.

Key topic 5 · The UN at bay, 1990–2011

Somalia, Bosnia and the Balkans

1992–93

Operations in Somalia expand from famine relief to disarmament; fighting in Mogadishu in October 1993 ends Western willingness to take casualties. Why this date: It is a direct cause of the failure to act in Rwanda six months later.

1993

The Council declares safe areas in Bosnia, including Srebrenica, without the forces commanders had requested. Why this date: A declaration unmatched by force is the specific decision that made 1995 possible.

April 1994

The Council reduces its force in Rwanda as genocide begins. Why this date: It shows the Somalia effect operating within months, on a different continent.

July 1995

Srebrenica falls and around eight thousand Bosniak men and boys are murdered. Why this date: The worst atrocity in Europe since 1945 occurred in a United Nations declared safe area, which forced the organisation to examine its own doctrine.

Mozambique, Sudan, the Gulf Wars and the obstacles to success

1990–91

The Council authorises all necessary means to reverse the invasion of Kuwait, and a coalition acts. Why this date: It is collective security working as the Charter intended, and it required the permanent members to agree.

1992–94

The Mozambique operation supervises demobilisation and elections; the war does not resume. Why this date: It succeeded in the same years Bosnia failed, which isolates consent as the variable.

2003

The Council declines to authorise war against Iraq and the war takes place regardless. Why this date: The organisation could neither permit nor prevent action by a permanent member, which is a limitation distinct from Cold War paralysis.

2005–11

The Sudan mission supports the north-south agreement and the referendum leading to South Sudan's independence. Why this date: It shows the consent condition producing a substantial success while Darfur, without consent, did not.