Home page: Palais Wilson, former headquarters of the League. Above: Professor Davide Rodogno.

Yesterday and today the Graduate Institute is holding an international scholarly conference entitled “Towards a New History of the League of Nations”.

Nearly 50 of the world’s leading scholars focusing on the history of the League of Nations, including members of the Graduate Institute faculty, will present papers intended to shed new light on the League’s legacy.

“The League is often portrayed as a failure, but my research and that of my international colleagues take a more nuanced approach to its history and looks at some of its enduring achievements”, said Davide Rodogno, Associate Professor of International History at the Institute and co-organiser of the conference.

The conference programme features panels on the League and security; on the role of experts and the practices of internationalism; on competing visions of global order; on popular internationalism and mobilisation; and on the role of the League in the shaping of understandings and regimes about rights.

Papers presented by Graduate Institute faculty members include “From Relief to Rehabilitation: The League of Nations High Commissariat for Refugees ‘Constructive Work’ in Western Thrace” by Professor Rodogno and “Contested Sovereignties at the League of Nations: Deskaheh’s Journey” by Professor of Anthropology, Isabelle Schulte-Tenckhoff. Professor Rodogno’s paper is based on work carried out as part of a research project he leads funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation entitled From Relief to Rehabilitation: The History of Transnational Humanitarian Action on Behalf of Civilian Populations in the Aftermath of the First World War from 1918-1933.

“This is the first time in 30 years such an important conference on the League of Nations has been held”, said Professor Rodogno. “We are taking a fresh interdisciplinary look at the history of the League with the help not only of historians but also anthropologists, geographers, international law scholars and political scientists. The Institute’s interdisciplinary approach is one of the reasons why it is the ideal place for such a conference in addition to the fact that the League’s archives are right around the corner. Although the League no longer exists, the challenges it faced are still relevant and our work seeks to show the continuities as well as the ruptures, the similarities and the differences between then and now”, he said.

The Graduate Institute was chosen as a venue for the event in part due to its strong ties to the history of the League of Nations. The League was founded after World War I in 1919 and was intended to be an organisation which would maintain world peace. It was established in Geneva because the city was already home to several international organisations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Labour Organization and was somewhat of a capital of global governance, much as it is today. After a few years of the League’s existence, its officials identified a growing need for education for international civil servants. In 1927 William Rappard, Professor and Rector at the University of Geneva and Director of the Mandate Section at the League of Nations, and Paul Mantoux, Professor at the University and Director of the Political Section of the League, founded the Graduate Institute of International Studies, which in 2008 became the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies after it merged with the Graduate Institute of Development Studies.

Co-organisers of the event are Susan Pedersen from Columbia University, Patricia Clavin of the University of Oxford and Corinne A. Pernet from the University of St. Gallen. Sponsors include the Pierre du Bois Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundations, the University of St. Gallen, the Carnegie Corporation, the Andrew M. Mellon Foundation and the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences.