Report dated July 22, 1932
League of Nations
Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments
Resolution adopted by the General Commission on July 23, 1932
digital.library.northwestern.edu
The Conference proposed all sorts of great sounding limitations on armaments. Then came the thorny issue of enforcement.
Excerpts:
Supervision
There shall be set up a Permanent Disarmament Commission with the constitution, rights and duties generally as outlined in part VI of the Draft Convention submitted by the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference, with such extension of its powers as may be deemed by the Conference necessary to enable the Convention to be effectively applied.
....
5. Violations
Rules of international law shall be formulated in connection with the provisions relating to the prohibition of chemical, bacteriological, and incendiary weapons and bombing from the air, and shall be supplemented by special measures dealing with infringement of these provisions.
In other words, don't do anything bad, and if you do, well, dammit, we will get back together and talk about it. Which is precisely what happened.
Germany and Japan violated these restrictions. But the restrictions were paper laws, rendered useless by the lack of an effective mechanism or will to enforce them. This was really no different than passing a law against murder that said that if somebody kills somebody else we will convene to decide whether we are going to do something about it. It was a bad joke, at the expense ultimately of millions of people and mass genocide.
Fast forward to the UN of today. Shall it pass rules, make declarations, watch them be flouted, and talk some more? I for one don't think so. |
