Oxford holds a substantial collection of League of Nations documents and publications very little of which is available digitally. The collection is situated in the Official Papers reading room at the Bodleian Law Library, all material is on open shelf.

Born out of the conflict of World War One, the League of Nations was the first international security organisation whose main aim was to maintain world peace. The League's aim was to maintain peace via collective security, disarmament, arbitration and sanctions as stated in its Covenant.

The constitution of the League of Nations was adopted by the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, established in Part 1 of the Treaty of Versailles. The League held its first Council meeting on Jan 16th 1920 in Paris. In November the League moved to its headquarters at the Palace of Nations, Geneva where the first General Assembly was held. The first Secretary-General was Sir Eric Drummond.

The League was unable to stop the military aggression that preceeded World War II and ceased to function during the war. Consequently the League was dissolved on April 18th 1946, to be superseded by the United Nations

Not all League of Nations documents are catalogued, so may not appear on SOLO. If you cannot find what you are looking for please contact : official.papers@bodleian.ox.ac.uk and the official papers staff will be happy to assist.

The Official Papers collection is situated on the ground floor of the Bodleian Law Library
see map.

E-mail: official.papers@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Telephone: +44 (0) 1865 271462

Fax: +44 (0) 1865 271475

Official Papers Section

Bodleian Law Library,
St. Cross Building,
Manor Road,
Oxford. OX1 3UR

Opening hours

Official Papers webpage

'League of Nations; Minority Regime as Anthropological Object'

Jane K Cowan (Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Sussex) on rethinking minority, nationality, the international and international governance through history in an effort to understand the League of Nations in terms of anthropology.