The prospects of democratization international police collaboration after the war

The League of Nations

In a lecture on “The Ideal of the League of Nations and Police, ” in 1936, the police president of Vienna, Dr. Michael Skubl, commented on the common goal of the new world organization and the old institution of police. He traced their common pursuit of peace and order back to 1815 when, for the first time, the European powers agreed on the mutual recognition of each other's territorial sovereignty and their common need for security against domestic rebellion. He cited the steps towards more and more international police collaboration from the Congress of Vienna to the founding of the League of Nations, in particular the creation of the International Red Cross, the founding of the German Empire, the Rome Conference of 1898, and the Peace Conference in The Hague in 1899.

The Covenant of the League of Nations was adopted in 1919- Given the wide range of political regimes brought together under the auspices of this world body, it should not surprise us that there were not many decisions reached at the political level of the assembly with direct bearing on police affairs. There were police situations arising from the refugee conventions adopted in the 1920s to deal with former Russian and Ottoman subjects in exile, and from the minorities treaties binding the succession states of Eastern Europe for which the League of Nations acted as guarantor. A convention adopted in 1937 “For the prevention and punishment of terrorism” provided for international police collaboration in hunting down political assassins, however it was not put into effect.