ULUSLARARASI ÖRGÜTLENME VE KÜRESEL YÖNETİŞİM - Deneme Sınavı - 1

Despite the fact that war was still an option, it was believed that the League would both offer and promote other political and diplomatic choices for states such as mediation and arbitration. After the four-year fighting, it was thought that states would prefer diplomatic rather than military options. In this regard, the League was considered a platform where multilateral diplomacy could function.

The primary problem of the League was the assumed equality among its members. As it was a design of the victorious states of World War I, the US, Britain, France, Japan, and Italy were given permanent membership in the Council. 

The weak cohesion among the great powers was one of The League's major weaknesses.

The League did not fairly represent the political and geographical structure of the world.

Probably the most significant weakness of the League was the lack of credible instruments at its disposal to enforce its own decisions.

The Peace of Westphalia had several important consequences for future international organizations:
first, the peace treaties were negotiated and signed by the states dominated by the rulers that were
commonly accepted as sovereigns of their realms. Second, physical borders of each state were
recognized and commonly accepted; therefore, each of these units represented a political entity. Third, each sovereign who represented a state was accepted as equal regardless of the size of lands they ruled or the nobility they belonged. The correct answer is D.

The most significant outcome of the Congress of Vienna was the creation of a new diplomatic
and political system in Europe, which is referred to as the Concert of Europe. The correct answer is A.

Growing demands for faster and more quality services worldwide required the creation of international organizations to manage economic relations. The Metric Union (1875), the International Copyright Union (1886), and the International Sugar Union (1902) were the most telling examples of international organizations that were established for regulating the international market. Furthermore, the International Telegraphic Union (1865), the Universal Postal Union (1874), and the International Union of Railway Transportation (1890) emerged as the key international organizations in coordinating international communication and cross-border transportation. The correct answer is E

The Hague Conference, on the other hand, was the first international meeting that was based on a higher sense of equality among states, regardless of their power status, and more universal representation. All 59 sovereign states were invited to the conference from every corner of the world. Out of its 26 participants, 20 states were from Europe, four from Asia, and two from the Americas. As such, The Hague Conference can be considered as the first global conference in the history of the international relations. The major outcome of The Hague Conference was the creation of the International Court of Arbitration, which was designed as a permanent international body for states to settle international disputes by judicial means. The International Danube Commission was established earlier with the Berlin Congress. The correct answer is B.

After WW1, five defeating countries of Japan, Italy, France, the USA and France were expected to found and become the five permanent states of League of Nations. However, the USA never joined the league. So, the correct answer is A.

Including the victorious allies and neutral countries, 44 states initially became the original members of the League. The number of the League’s member states rapidly increased, and 63 countries became member states of the League by 1939. Although the idea of a permanent international organization for maintaining peace was championed by US President Wilson, the US officially never joined the organization, because the US Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations. The states that were later admitted to the League included Bulgaria and Austria in 1920, Hungary and Romania in 1922, Germany in 1926, Turkey in 1932, and the USSR in 1934. However, some states withdrew from the League’s membership such as Brazil in 1926, Japan in 1933, Germany in 1933, and Italy in 1937. The main organs of the League of Nations were the Assembly, the Council, and the Secretariat. The Assembly was one of the principal bodies of the League. It was composed of one to three representatives from each member state, and therefore reflected the universal characteristic of the League.  The Council was designed to be the other central body of the League of Nations. It was primarily responsible for the maintenance of peace. The agenda of the Council covered various topics from frontier adjustments or border disputes that emanated from the inconsistent peace treaties to the governments’ unfair treatment of refugees and minorities, from the administration of specific areas and settlements given to the League to the mediation of disputes among states. The Council held regular meetings every three months and, if necessary, could hold extraordinary sessions. The Council had four permanent members- namely, England, France, Japan, and Italy- and three non-permanent members who were selected by the Assembly for a three-year term. The initial organization of the Council showed that the great powers hoped to protect their privileged positions over other states. Although the Council appeared to be the principal organ to deal with urgent international problems, the Assembly had important powers too. It was the sole authority over the budget of the League. It had authority to decide on the admission and expulsion of a member as well as the revision of treaties. The Secretariat consisted of a Secretary-General and staff who were responsible for the administrative affairs of the organization. This body represented the organizational structure of the League and contributed to the cooperation and collaboration among its various departments. The staff included members from all parts of the world. The staff members of the Secretariat were responsible to the SecretaryGeneral and to the organization as a whole. They were expected to serve independently of  their own governments (Bennett, 2010: 33). As such, the Secretariat represented also the universal identity of the League. Throughout its history, the League had three Secretaries-General: Sir Eric James Drummond from Britain (1919-1933), Joseph Avenol from France (1933-1940), and Séan Lester from Ireland (1940-1946). The correct answer is C.

During the early 1920s, the League proved its potential with regard to preventing wars. The League’s Council was instrumental in the settlement of the border dispute between Germany and Poland in Upper Silesia in 1922, the Corfu incident between Italy and Greece in 1923, the border clashes between Greece-Bulgaria in 1925, and the Mosul question between Great Britain and Turkey. However, from the early 1930s on, the League began to face significant challenges that actually tested its capacity for maintaining the peace of the Versailles Treaty. The first major crisis  was the   Japanese occupation of the Chinese territory of Manchuria in September 1931. The Manchuria crisis showed all weaknesses of the League’s Covenant. Another challenge that the League faced during the 1930s was the Italian invasion of Ethiopia (Abyssinia) in 1935. Italy had expansionist ambitions in Somali and Eritrea in the early 1930s. After a series of border clashes, Ethiopian King Haile Selassie wanted to submit the issue to arbitration, but it was refused by Italy. The Ethiopian government brought the issue before the Council. However, the British and French noninterference in the Italian plans in East Africa further helped Mussolini delay the Council’s decision. After the refusal of a final British and French reconciliation effort, Italy began a full-scale invasion of Ethiopia in October 1935. The correct answer is B.

Following the Battle of Waterloo, the major powers signed two separate alliance treaties consecutively, the Holy Alliance and the Quadruple Alliance. The former, signed on 18 September 1815, was a proclamation of the three East European monarchies, that is, the royal houses of Habsburg, Hohenzollern, and Romanov. The alliance was proposed as a spiritual formation of the three sects of Christianity. The three monarchs would remain united by the bonds of a true fraternity. With the Alliance, all three monarchs accepted each other as equals and brothers. The monarchs promised to rule their subjects based on Christian values such as charity, justice, and peace as well as to stay united in helping each other to fulfill the role given to them by their God. Under such an agreement, the parties accepted to employ any effective measure toward helping one another. The content of the Holy Alliance was an explicit manifesto for the legitimacy of the absolute monarchy’s sovereignty over the people who had recently experienced wthe French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Almost all European powers were forced to muster huge armies to fight against the citizen army of the French Republic and then Napoleon’s French Empire. Napoleonic Wars. As such, the rules of the Holy Alliance provided the basis on which the new peace in Europe would be established. However, Britain also decided to join the alliance. As a result, the treaty establishing the Quadruple Alliance was signed on 20 November 1815. The correct answer is E.

Some states withdrew from the League’s membership such as Brazil in 1926, Japan in 1933, Germany in 1933, and Italy in 1937. However, the Soviet Union was expelled from the League following their invasion of Finland in 1939. The correct answer is C.

The era in which the Concert of Europe prevailed was a subsequent move toward the further institutionalization in the international environment for maintaining peace. However, the scope of the Concert was regional, and its structure which depended on great power politics was excessively weak to establish permanent bodies which would act as dispute-solving instruments. The answer is A.