Organisation of the League of Nations

The League of Nations was established with three main constitutional organs: the Assembly; the Council; the Permanent Secretariat. The two essential wings of the League were the Permanent Court of International Justice and the International Labour Organisation.

The relations between the Assembly and the Council were not explicitly defined, and their competencies, with a few exceptions, were much the same. Each body might deal with any matter within the sphere of competence of the League or affecting the peace in the world. Particular questions or tasks might be referred either to the Council or the Assembly. Reference might be passed on from one body to another.

The Permanent Secretariat, established at the seat of the League at Geneva, comprised a body of experts in various spheres under the direction of the General Secretary.

The principal Sections of the Secretariat were: Political; Financial and Economics; Communications and Transit; Minorities and Administration (Saar and Danzig); Mandates; Disarmament; Health; Social (Opium and Traffic in Women and Children); Intellectual Cooperation and International Bureaux; Legal; and Information. Each Section was responsible for all official secretarial work related to its particular subject and prepared and organized all meetings and conferences held in that connection.

The staff of the League's secretariat was responsible for preparing the agenda for the Council and Assembly and publishing reports of the meetings and other routine matters, effectively acting as the civil service for the League. The secretariat was often considered to be too small to handle all of the League's administrative affairs. For example, the total number of officials classed as members of the Secretariat was 75 in September 1924. The total staff, including all the clerical services, comprised about 400 persons.

In general, the League documents may be classified into the following categories: document on public sale, documents not on public sale, and classified, e.g., confidential and secret.

The specific feature of the documents emanating from the League of Nations was their classification according to the persons they were addressed to and not according to their subjects.

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