The League of Nations and Its Problems: Three Lectures

by L. Oppenheim

II. It is true there are the so-called Great Powers which are the leaders of the Family of Nations, and it is therefore asserted by some authorities that the Community of States has acquired a certain amount of organisation because the Great Powers are the legally recognised superiors of the minor States.

But is this assertion correct? The Great Powers, are they really the legally recognised superiors of the minor States?

I deny it. A Great Power is any large-sized State possessing a large population which gains such economic, military, and naval strength that its political influence must be reckoned with by all the other Powers. At the time of the outbreak of the World War eight States had to be considered as Great Powers, namely Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United States of America, and Japan. But it is very probable that the end of the World War will see the number of Great Powers reduced to six. The collapse and break up of Russia has surely for the present eliminated her from the number of Great Powers. And it is quite certain that Austria-Hungary will not emerge from the struggle as a Great Power, if she emerges from it as a whole at all. History teaches that the number of the Great Powers is by no means stable, and changes occasionally take place. Look at the condition of affairs during the nineteenth century. Whereas at the time of the Vienna Congress in 1815 eight States, namely Great Britain, Austria, France, Portugal, Prussia, Spain, Sweden, and Russia were still considered Great Powers, their number soon decreased to five, because Portugal, Spain, and Sweden ceased to be Great Powers. On the other hand, Italy joined the number of the Great Powers after her unification in 1860; the United States of America joined the Great Powers after the American Civil War in 1865; and Japan emerged as a Great Power from her war with China in 1895.

Be that as it may, so much is certain, a State is a Great Power not by law but only by its political influence. The Great Powers are the leaders of the Family of Nations because their political influence is so great. Their political and economic influence is in the long run irresistible; therefore all arrangements made by the Great Powers naturally in most cases gain, either at once or in time, the consent of the minor States. It may be said that the Great Powers exercise a kind of political hegemony within the Family of Nations. Yet this hegemony is not based on law, it is simply a political fact, and it is certainly not a consequence of an organisation of the Family of Nations.

III. The demand for a proper organisation of the Community of States had, up to the outbreak of the World War, been raised exclusively on the part of the so-called Pacifists in order to make the abolition of war a possibility. It is a common assertion on the part of the Pacifists that War cannot die out so long as there is no Central Political Authority in existence above the several States which could compel them to bring their disputes before an International Court and also compel them to carry out the judgments of such a Court. For this reason many Pacifists aim at such an organisation of the Community of States as would bring all the civilised States of the world within the bonds of a federation. They demand a World Federation of all the civilised States, or at any rate a federation of the States of Europe, on the model of the United States of America.

If such a Federal World State were practically possible, there would be no objection to it, although International Law as such would cease to exist and be replaced by the Constitutional Law of this Federal World State. But in my first lecture I pointed out that such a Federal World State is practically impossible. And it is not even desirable.

The development of mankind would seem in the main to be indissolubly connected with the national development of the peoples. Most peoples possessing a strong national consciousness desire an independent State in which they can live according to their own ideals. They want to be their own masters, and not to be part and parcel of a Federal World State to which they would have to surrender a great part of their independence. Moreover—as I likewise pointed out in my first lecture (pp. [18-20])—it would be impossible to establish a strong Government and a strong Parliament in a Federal World State.

However this may be, it is not at all certain that war would altogether disappear in a Federal World State. The history of Federal States teaches that wars do occasionally break out between their member States. Think of the war between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant member States of the Swiss Confederation in 1847, of the war in 1863 between the Northern and the Southern member States within the Federation which is called the United States of America, and of the war between Prussia and Austria within the German Confederation in 1866.

IV. But what kind of organisation of the League of Nations is possible if we reject the idea of a Federal State?

Neither I, nor anyone else who does not like to build castles in the air, can answer this question directly by making a detailed proposal. It is at present quite impossible to work out a practical scheme according to which a more detailed organisation of the League of Nations could be realised. But so much is certain that every attempt at organising this League must start from, and must keep intact, the independence and the equality of all civilised States. It is for this reason that a Central Political Authority above the sovereign States can never be thought of. Every attempt to organise a League of Nations on the model of a Federal State is futile. If a detailed organisation of the League should ever come, it will be one sui generis, one absolutely of its own kind; such as has never been seen before. And it is at present quite impossible to map out a detailed plan of such an organisation although, as I shall have to show you later, the first step towards an organisation has already been made, and further steps towards the ideal can be taken. The reason that it is at present impossible is that the growth and the final shape of the organisation of the League of Nations will, and must, go hand in hand with the progress of International Law. But the progress of International Law is conditioned by the growth, the strengthening, and the deepening of international economic and other interests, and of international morality. It is a matter of course that this progress can only be realised very slowly, for there is concerned a process of development through many generations and perhaps through centuries, a development whose end no one can foresee. It is sufficient for us to state that the development had already begun before the World War, and to try to foster it, as far as is in our power, after the conclusion of peace.