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National Subsidy of International Organs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2017

Denys P. Myers
Denys P. Myers*
Affiliation:
World Peace Foundation; Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
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Extract

The forms of international organizations have been a result of practical considerations. They exist because the specific necessities or desiderata which have appeared in the national interests of states were best dealt with by some international machinery. Frequently the constructive idea has come from a particular government which was willing to sponsor whatever institution was required to give it reality. In consequence, most of the multilateral machinery which governments now use for their 60 or 70 cooperative activities are situated in national capitals and are dependent on particular governments for some of their functioning. Diplomatic courtesy has thus largely accounted for the present wide geographic distribution of international bureaus, commissions, and other organs; but since the constituent instruments have customarily provided for their limited financial support by all contracting states, and the functions of the host government have been formal or even honorary, dependence upon a single administration has seldom interfered with the functioning of official international organs.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , April 1939 , pp. 318 - 331
Copyright
Copyright © The American Society of International Law 1939

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References

1 By virtue of the obvious requirement of mutual acceptance of a fact having reciprocal effects, the acknowledgment of receipt controls the beginning of the period of two years during which a notice of intention to withdraw matures. In this case, however, the Secretary-General’s reply of Dec. 13 acknowledged the receipt of the “telegram of December 11, 1937, from which it results that Italy gives as at the above date notice of its intention to withdraw from the League of Nations in accordance with Article 1, par. 3, of the Covenant.” It would, then, appear that Italy’s membership in the League of Nations will terminate on Dec. 10, 1939. However, the Italian notification (League of Nations Official Journal, 1938, 10) takes no cognizance of the Covenant’s period of notice, but is conditioned solely upon the will of the Fascist Government. The telegram reads: “In consequence of the decisions of the Grand Council of Fascism I [Galeazzo Ciano .Minister for Foreign Affairs] hereby inform you that Italy withdraws from the League of Nations on December 11th, 1937/XVT.” Italy was not represented in the Council after October, 1935, nor in the Assembly after July 4, 1935.

2 The Assembly or Council may create bodies of a permanent or temporary character to realize any purpose of the Covenant. Arts. 9, 22, 23 and 25 authorize the constitution of commissions, organizations and committees of great variety.

3 The article reads: “1. There shall be placed under the direction of the League all international bureaus already established by general treaties if the parties to such treaties consent. All such international bureaus and all commissione for the regulation of matters of international interest hereafter constituted shall be placed under the direction of the League.

“2. In all matters of international interest which are regulated by general conventions but which are not placed under the control of international bureaus or commissions, the Secretariat of the League shall, subject to the consent of the Council and if desired by the parties, collect and distribute all relevant information and shall render any other assistance which may be necessary or desirable.

“3. The Council may include as part of the expenses of the Secretariat the expenses of any bureau or commission which is placed under the direction of the League.”

4 Report adopted by the Council, June 7, 1928, Official Journal, 1928, 899. Earlier pronouncements are those of June 27,1921 (Minutes of the 13th Session of the Council, 54, 249), and of July 2, 1923 (Official Journal, 1923, 858, 951).

5 The essentials were defined in 1928 as: 1, receipt by the Secretary-General of all publications; 2, advisory representation at all meetings; 3, rendering of opinions to the League’s technical organizations; 4, submission of an annual report for League circulation. (Official Journal, 1928, 899.)

6 This is especially the case with the International Institute of Agriculture, which became an “advisory organ” of the League in 1932 (Official Journal, 1932, 1752), after ten years of cooperation with it and the International Labor Organization.

7 A few of the international conventions not negotiated under League auspices which have benefited by this cooperation are: the International Convention on Safety of Life at Sea (1929), the International Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (1925 and 1934), the Nomenclature on the Causes of Death (1930), the forthcoming revision of the Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Property.

8 Six are formally in this relation: The International Office for Information and Research concerning Assistance to Foreigners, at Paris; the International Hydrographic Bureau, at Monaco; the Central International Office for the Control of the Liquor Traffic in Africa, at Brussels; the International Commission for Air Navigation, at Paris; the Nansen International Refugees Office, at Geneva; and the International Exhibitions Bureau at Paris.

9 Official Journal, 1923, 951.

10 For the new draft statute, see League of Nations Official Journal, 1937, 1293; separately in Document C.95.M.48.1938. VIII.1.

11 For its constitution, see Official Journal, 1936, 1175.

12 Official Journal, 1924, 1296.

13 Ibid., 1925, 157.

14 Three days after the Assembly had, by reference from the Council, expressed in recommendations its view on how the French offer should be carried out. (Resolutions and Recommendations adopted by the Assembly, 1924,17 (Official Journal, Spl. Supp. No. 21).)

15 Records of the Fifth Ordinary Session of the Assembly, Plenary Meetings, 168 (Official Journal, Spl. Supp. No. 23).

16 Official Journal, 1924, 1375.

17 Official Journal, 1926, 577.

18 Ibid., 812.

19 These instruments are appended to the Italian decree-law No. 2220, Sept. 3, 1926, Raccolta ufficiale delle leggi e dei decreti del Regno d’Italia, 1927, 1, 117; Gazzetta ufficiale, Jan. 8, 1927.

20 Official Journal, 1928, 1753.

21 Ibid., 1937, 1057.

22 This is a far-reaching project intended to unify the international and inter-American conventions on the protection of literary and artistic property into a single system at a forthcoming conference in Brussels.

23 Records of the 18th Ordinary Session of the Assembly, Minutes of the 1st Committee, 51 (Official Journal, Spl. Supp. No. 170). Further account of the work is in League Document A.42.1938.V.

24 Official Journal, 1936, 1291.

25 Official Journal, 1938, 15.

26 Ibid., 1927, 1182; Records of the 8th Ordinary Session of the Assembly, Meetings of the Committees, Minutes of the Second Committee, 70 (Spl. Supp. No. 56).

27 Raccolta ufficiale delle leggi e dei decreti del Regno d’Italia, 1927, 1, 57, decree-law of Dec. 24, 1926.

28 Records of the 8th Ordinary Session of the Assembly, Plenary Meetings, 34 (Official Journal, Spl. Supp. No. 54).

29 The text is in Raccolta, 1928, 6, 6222; Gazzetta ufficiale, Sept. 14, 1928. Here the Secretary-General’s notification of the action of Aug. 30, dated Sept. 4, completes the synallagmatic contract. The League publication of the documents is in Official Journal, 1927,1450; 1928, 398, 549, 1432,1773. The Statute in the accepted form is ibid., 1928, 1512, and 1929, 167; and as amended, ibid., 1933, 887.

30 The basic Italian offer was 600,000 lire, annually supplemented. For the budgets, see Official Journal, 1930, 136, 138; 1931, 260; 1932, 575; 1933, 315; 1934, 207, 1420.

31 155 League of Nations Treaty Series, 331; Reg. No. 3585. This convention was virtually copied in a convention of the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace at Buenos Aires, December, 1936.

32 See the report, Official Journal, 1937, 1055.

33 Ibid., 1928, 549, 1773; 1929, 166.

34 A first appointment by the Council of the League took place Sept. 26, 1928, and a second on May 26, 1933. Official Journal 1928, 1680; 1933, 823.

35 Art. 7, (ibid., 1929, 39, 160; 1933, 890.)

36 Ibid., 1932, 457. The regulations were adopted by the Governing Body Oct. 14, 1931.

37 Ibid., 1932, 576.

38 Ibid., 1938, 14.

39 The Governing Body was elected May 26, 1933 “to remain in office five years.”

40 An International Union of Forest Research Organizations was organized at Badenveiler in 1891, and reorganized at Stockholm in 1929. A committee has functioned since 1930. The Union enrolls about 90 forestry organizations of 35 countries. (League of Nations, Handbook of International Organizations, 1938, 316 (1937. xii.B.4).)

41 International Institute of Agriculture, Monthly Bulletin of Agricultural Science and Practice, 1936, 394.

42 The International Institute of Agriculture, the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations, and the International Timber Committee. The International Timber Committee was founded in Vienna in 1932 as a result of a meeting of experts convened by the Economic Committee of the League of Nations, and an International Timber Conference which followed that meeting. In January, 1935, a Department for Timber Utilization, including 12 national organizations, and in November, 1935, the European Timber Exporters’ Convention, comprising 9 central organizations, were established as adjuncts of the Committee. (Handbook of International Organizations, 1938, 363-4.)

43 The early papers relating to the matter are printed in Vol. 3 of the Proceedings of the IInd International Forestry Congress (Budapest, 1936).

44 This attitude represents a policy of the United States, which virtually withdrew from the International Institute of Agriculture itself from 1928 until 1934, when a long-delayed definition of the functions of the president (Italian by courtesy) of the Permanent Committee was adopted by the 12th General Assembly. See House Report 44, 73d Cong., 1st Sees. For Italian particularism in this connection, Hobson, Asher, The International Institute of Agriculture, 155-156, 295-307, may be consulted.

45 Steps taken by the Pan American Union in Fulfillment of the Conventions and Resolutions adopted at the Seventh International Conference of American States (Pan American Union, Congress and Conference Series No. 20). The meetings were: Pan American Financial Conference, Inter-American Commission on Fluvial Navigation, Inter-American Congress on Housing, the Inter-American Congress on Rural Life, the Second Inter-American Conference on Agriculture, and an Inter-American Labor Institute.

46 The Council of the League of Nations, in laying down principles to govern the acceptance of institutes, decided on June 7, 1928, that “the object of the institute must come within the sphere of activity of the League of Nations, the institute serving as a working instrument.” (Official Journal, 1928, 900.)

47 The issuance of invitations, the receipt of instruments of ratification or accession as a depository, and the printing of proceedings, are accepted formalities performed by a host government.

48 The funds of the Office international d’Hygiène publique, by Art. IV of the agreement of Dec. 9, 1907 (100 British and Foreign State Papers, 466), are deposited through the French Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Caisse des dépôts et consignations and drawn upon by the Director of the Office. By Art. 13 of the Convention on the Protection of Industrial Property, Nov. 6, 1925, “the Government of the Swiss Confederation superintends the expenses of the International Bureau, advances the necessary funds and renders an annual account.” (League of Nations, 74 Treaty Series, 289; Hudson, Manley O., 3 International Legislation, 1778.) The Director General of the Pan American Union maintains special deposit accounts with the Treasury of the United States by Art. 4, Sec. 5 (b) of the Convention of May 2,1928 (Hudson, 4 op. cit., 2435). By Art. 23 (5) of the Convention for Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, June 2, 1928, the “Swiss Administration” prepares the budget of the Bureau, superintends expenditure, makes advances and draws up an annual report. (League of Nations, 123 Treaty Series, 235; Hudson, 4 op. cit., 2477.) The International Transit Office of the Postal Union of the Americas and Spain, by Art. 16 of the Convention of Nov. 10, 1931 (League of Nations, 131 Treaty Series, at 357; Hudson, 5 op. cit., 1104), receives advances from the Panama Government, which is reimbursed by the office receipts. The same method, as followed by the Bureau of the Universal Postal Union and the Swiss Government, is continued by Art. 191 of the regulations for the execution of the Universal Postal Convention, March 20, 1934. (League of Nations, 174 Treaty Series, at 338; Hudson, 6 op. cit., 724.)

49 Any organization of international value is unsatisfactorily based if it is dependent on the exclusive or nearly exclusive support of a single state. Either the organization that is supported by a single state is a national venture invested with an artificial international status, or it is a genuine international undertaking that its beneficiaries are not, under the circumstances, paying for. If the first alternative is true, the contributing state is likely to tire in time of paying for a properly administered international organization that yields to it a minimum of kudos. If the second alternative is true, international organization should await that amount of public support which will induce the governments to pay the requisite freight.

50 This is one of the principles adopted by the Council of the League in 1928. (Official Journal, 1928, 900.)

51 This provision has applied to the Governing Body of the Pan American Union since 1923. Before that date the Secretary of State of the United States was the designated president.