| |
| 2. Regional Interstate Institutions |
| |
| During the interwar period, some groups of states developed important permanent interstate structures. The British Empire made significant steps in the direction of the BRITISH COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS. The earlier extension of dominion status to Canada (1867), Australia (1901), New Zealand (1907), and the Union of South Africa (1910) laid the foundation for the establishment by the Imperial Conference in 1926 of the association of equal states united by “common allegiance to the crown.” In the Western Hemisphere, conferences had been held by the independent republics throughout the 19th century. PAN-AMERICANISM was institutionalized with the creation of the International Union of American Republics in 1890. Four International Conferences of American States were held before World War I, and the Fifth International Conference of American States, held at Santiago, Chile, in 1923, reorganized the structures, establishing the Pan-American Union as the permanent organization for the association of American republics. The Eighth International Conference (Peru, 1938) issued the Declaration of Lima affirming solidarity in defense of the hemisphere against foreign intervention. At the Ninth International Conference (Colombia, 1948), the organization was restructured as the ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES as a regional grouping under the United Nations. | 1 |
| World War II negotiations. The structures for the peaceful resolution of international conflicts did not prevent significant fighting in the 1930s leading up to World War II. The Japanese occupation of Manchuria (1931–32) and invasion of China (1937), the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, and the German reoccupation of the Rhineland (1936) and steady expansion through negotiation and attack were signs of the failure of institutions of international political cooperation. Following the declarations of war by the world's major powers in 1939–41, structures of international political coordination were organized for the efforts of a world war. Two major groupings of powers emerged: the AXIS POWERS, led by Germany, Japan, and Italy; and the ALLIED POWERS, led by Great Britain, France, the U.S., and China. | 2 |
| Axis international cooperation was defined by the German-Italian-Japanese Treaty of 1940. However, Germany and Japan did not coordinate efforts significantly, and Japan never attacked the Soviet Union. | 3 |
| Allied international coordination was more intensive, and a series of conferences during the war defined the foundations for the postwar international system. Among the most important of these were:Atlantic Conference of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill (Aug. 1941), which issued the ATLANTIC CHARTER (See Aug. 14) as a declaration of British and American peace aims.1943 SUMMIT CONFERENCES (See The Organization of Peace) of heads of major Allied states to define war aims and goals: Casablanca (January; Britain, the U.S., and France); Quebec (August; Churchill and Roosevelt); Cairo (November; Britain, the U.S., and China); Tehran (November–December; Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin).1945 CONFERENCES coordinated the final Allied war efforts and established a new international organization to succeed the League of Nations. Summit conferences of heads of the governments of Great Britain, the U.S., and the Soviet Union took place at Yalta (February) and Potsdam (July–August). The San Francisco Conference (April–June) completed the charter of the UNITED NATIONS ORGANIZATION, which succeeded the League of Nations, and the first session of the U.N. General Assembly took place in January 1946. A peace conference in Paris in 1946 drafted treaties of peace between the Allies and Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland, but the Allies could not agree on the major treaties with Germany and Japan. The creation of the United Nations represented the beginning of a new era of global interstate institutions. | 4 |
| |
| |
