WI: The League of Nations was structured like the United Nations & ICC?

Rhymehouse

The League of Nations is the predecessor to the United Nations. It was infamous for being a huge failure in stopping World War 2. The UN is somewhat more successful, but is that due to its different bindings? What if the League of Nations had the same exact stipulations that the UN had? What if also the International Criminal Court was established after WW1 with modern war crime treaties as criminal offenses?

One major difference between the League of Nations and the United Nations is the security council. The security council is effectively an international peacekeeping force that protects civilians, establishes safe zones, and punishes rogue actors if possible. There are 10 temporary members and 5 permanent members of the security council. In 1920, I'm not sure who will be the 5 permanent members. I doubt the Soviet Union will be established as one and China in 1920 was a divided patchwork of warlord cliques. I could see USA, UK, France, Japan, & maybe Argentina being the 5 permanent security council members. Security council members have the power to veto any United Nations action.

The International Criminal Court can get to work prosecuting the orchestrators of the Greek genocide and Armenian genocide in West Asia.
 
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Sekhmet_D

Rhymehouse said:
One major difference between the League of Nations and the United Nations is the security council. The security council is effectively an international peacekeeping force that protects civilians, establishes safe zones, and punishes rogue actors if possible.
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After the meatgrinder of WW1, is anybody going to be in the mood to play world police, with the possible exception of America?
 

Lalli

USA probably still wouldn't join which would leave things pretty hard. So as permanent members of UNSC probably would are France, Britain, Italy, Japan and as fifth perhaps Brazil or Argentine.
 
EasternRomanEmpire

EasternRomanEmpire

Rhymehouse said:
The League of Nations is the predecessor to the United Nations. It was infamous for being a huge failure in stopping World War 2. The UN is somewhat more successful, but is that due to its different bindings? What if the League of Nations had the same exact stipulations that the UN had? What if also the International Criminal Court was established after WW1 with modern war crime treaties as criminal offenses?

One major difference between the League of Nations and the United Nations is the security council. The security council is effectively an international peacekeeping force that protects civilians, establishes safe zones, and punishes rogue actors if possible. There are 10 temporary members and 5 permanent members of the security council. In 1920, I'm not sure who will be the 5 permanent members. I doubt the Soviet Union will be established as one and China in 1920 was a divided patchwork of warlord cliques. I could see USA, UK, France, Japan, & maybe Argentina being the 5 permanent security council members. Security council members have the power to veto any United Nations action.

The International Criminal Court can get to work prosecuting the orchestrators of the Greek genocide and Armenian genocide in West Asia.
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I don't think there would be a security council as the Great Powers (France and Britain) know that nobody can really go against their will and they wouldn't be willing to play the world police as they don't even pretend that they defend Human Rights.
Also there wouldn't be any Human Rights as the Great Powers were not respecting those in their colonies.
 

DougM

The failure of the LoN to stop WW2 vs no WW3 while the UN has existed has ZERO to do with the UN and everything to do with the Nuclear weapons and ICBMs.
You could paste the UN wholesale into the place of the LoN and nothing would change as far as WW2 goes. GB and France and various other European and non European counties chose to differing degrees to not interfere with Germany and then to appease Germany and that had NOTHING to do with the LoN itself. So any differences between the UN and the LoN would not have changed this at all. the UN has no real power. It relies on countries being willing to work together towards a goal. How often have we seen the UN condemn something and yet nothing happens? The UN is simply a good label to stick on any country or countries that are willing to commit troops, money or other resources to achieve an end goal. Korea was a UN war Vietnam was not… so what? They where both still a multi nation effort that was mostly a US supplied and fought war. Do you think that without the UN Korea would have bern any different or that with UN backing Vietnam would have bern different?
The UN has it uses but frankly it is a lot less important then the. UN likes to think it is.
So how do you picture a UN stopping WW2 from happening? It is not as if France and GB and the US didn't realize that Hitter and Germany was a problem. It was that NO ONE wanted to commit the troops and money to do anything about it until they had no other choice and by that time the cost was high and we get WW2.
It was not like you need the UN or the LoN to implement an embargo. The US did that pretty well vs Japan. nor do you need the UN to organize a combined resistance to a country or issue an ultimatum. France and GB did that once Germany pushed them far enough that they were willing yo stand up to Germany.
So what is the UN going yo do that will stop WW2? Do you really think that Hitler will not invade Poland because the UN issued a declaration that he shouldnt? Do you think a UN backed sanction would be any more likely to stop Japan then the US lead sanction was?

So why exactly do you think the UN is more successful then the LoN? Because it has survived longer?It sure has not had any more success in stopping wars. Korea, Vietnam (France) Vietnam (US) Multiple wars involving Israel. Iran/Iraq, Various issues with Pakistan and India, The Gulf War, Iraq/US…. The list goes on and on and on. So you sure cant believe that the UN has done any better at avoiding war then the LoN did.
It is just that the LoN ended with WW2. While during the UNs time we have avoided WW3, but as i said that is more because the Super powers all have a ton of Nukes and the Major powers mostly have Nukes so they avoid wars with each other and only fight wars against non Nuclear powers and that generally means third rate countries. As the non nuclear major powers are either generally pretty peacefull or they are allied with a nuclear power or both.

So a UN in place of the LoN is in and of itself going to change nothing.
 

Rhymehouse

Sekhmet_D said:
After the meatgrinder of WW1, is anybody going to be in the mood to play world police, with the possible exception of America?
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There were international interventions right after WW1 from Britain and France. That and some Latin American countries can pitch in (the current security council is mainly made of developing nations sending their troops abroad).

Although @EasternRomanEmpire brings up a good point that the colonial empires themselves would be violating the human right treaties of the UN.
 

black_0

Rhymehouse said:
Although @EasternRomanEmpire brings up a good point that the colonial empires themselves would be violating the human right treaties of the UN.
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So the same as in OTL? Let's say that in this ATL the permament memebers of the security council consist of UK, France, USA, Japan and Italy . Is it really much worse than the OTL one that initially consisted of UK, France, USA, Soviet Union and ROC?
I would argree however that, in this post-WW1 UN timeline, without the effects of extreme violations of human rights perpetuated by the Axis in OTL there would be less incentive for the Great Powers to even pretend that they protect these rights.
 

DougM

Post WW1 Argentina nor Japan are getting perminate seats on the Security council. They are simply not Powerful enough to justify placating them. There was nothing sacred about the number of perminate members anyway. So why try and fill the same number of positions.

But we are still ignoring the simple fact that the UN is no more successful then the LoN was at preventing war, terrorism or various other atrocities. It is simply longer lived. So what do you think swapping the LoN to a coppy of the UN will accomplish?
 

Galba Otho Vitelius

The UN security council was literally the victorious powers in World War II. The big three of the USA, USSR, and UK, and France and nationalist China were included, and France got an occupation zone and there were plans to give the Chinese one.

The World War I equivalent in 1918 were the UK, France, USA, and Italy. Japan was unlikely to be included given the attitude shown towards Japan in the Paris peace conference. The USSR joined the League of Nations later, but in 1918 was not recognized nor invited to the Paris peace conference. So the only possible security council would be the big four of the UK, France, USA, and Italy, and if the USA does not join the League of Nations it probably falls apart.

However, the existence of a Security Council, with the USA as a member and possessing a veto, probably addresses the objections to the League in the USA sufficiently that the USA joins after all. And this will have a big impact.

I don't get the focus on the "ICC", given that the Hague tribunal pre-dated the League. But the United Nations was really the League of Nations with the addition of the Security Council, and some buildings in New York (most of the offices remained in Geneva). And the Security Council was instituted because the experience of the League demonstrated that the organization needed all the great powers to participate, and all the great powers would only participate with some sort of veto power. Put that in at the start, and there is a good chance they get the USA to join.
 
EasternRomanEmpire

EasternRomanEmpire

black_0 said:
So the same as in OTL? Let's say that in this ATL the permament memebers of the security council consist of UK, France, USA, Japan and Italy . Is it really much worse than the OTL one that initially consisted of UK, France, USA, Soviet Union and ROC?
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Assuming that there will be a Security Council (since Britain and France know no one will really oppose them) Japan would probably not be included since they would see no point to do so, the US would probably have the same reaction as OTL and Italy might be included but it's far from certain.
 
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