The Cambridge Handbook of the League of Nations and International Law

Haakon A. Ikonomou is a historian of international organizations, global governance, international bureaucracy and diplomacy. His publications apply digital, global, prosopographical, biographical, institutional, social and oral history approaches. He is PI of 'INNER_LEAGUE: A Social-Bureaucratic History of the League of Nations Secretariat' (ERC Consolidator: 2025–30). Karin van Leeuwen specializes in the role of law in European political history. She has published widely on Dutch constitutional history, the legal history of European integration and interwar international law and currently leads a research project on the historical relation between judicialization of politics and democracy. Morten Rasmussen is a leading expert on the legal histories of European integration and the League of Nations. He has published numerous articles and book chapters on these topics and is editor with Bill Davies of a new anthology on the history of EU law: The History of European Union Law. Constitutional Practice, 1950 to 1993 (2026).

• Introduction: The League of Nations and international law Haakon A. Ikonomou, Karin van Leeuwen and Morten Rasmussen; 1. The League of Nations and international order after the First World War Peter Jackson; Part I. Institutions: 2. An agent of international law? The legal section of the General Secretariat, 1919–1926 Morten Rasmussen; 3. The International Labour Organization at the Vanguard, 1919–1945 Guy Fiti Sinclair; 4. Lodestar of Legalism. The Permanent Court of International Justice, 1919–1946 Henri de Waele; 5. Peace through law? The legal techniques used to stabilize Upper Silesia 1922–1937 Michel Erpelding; 6. New forms of international adjudication? The history of the mixed arbitral tribunals, 1919–1939 Jakob Zollmann; Part II. States: 7. Instrumentalizing the Versailles system of international law: The German Foreign Office and its mobilization of scholarly international law, 1920–1925 Thomas Storgaard; 8. France and compulsory arbitration: from the Geneva Protocol to the ratification of the General Act of Arbitration, 1924–1931 Jean-Michel Guieu; 9. Nordic jurists and the League of Nations Dag Michaelsen; 10. An almost fanatical support for the League: Uruguay, legal reform, and the origins of the Latin America bloc in Geneva Andrei Mamolea; 11. From a judicial solution to collective security: the Manchurian conflict, Japan, and the 'disappearing' Permanent Court of International Justice, 1931–1933 Tomoko Akami; 12. Beyond the reach of the League? The minority clauses of the Lausanne Treaty and the status of the Kurds Derya Bayir; Part III. Networks and Networkers: 13. Organizing legal internationalism: the Institute of International Law, the International Law Association and the League of Nations, 1919–1939 Karin van Leeuwen; 14. Financing international law: the role of The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in building a profession Jens Wegener; 15. The great entertainer: the networking of Manley O. Hudson Rasmus S. Søndergaard; Part IV. Policies and Legal Norms: 16. Law, legal expertise and the peaceful settlement of disputes: revisiting early League Council practice Megan Donaldson; 17. Violence, Legalism and the evolution of sovereignty in the league mandates, 1923–1939 Leonard V. Smith; 18. The League of Nations and the Sanctions Revolution in international law Nicholas Mulder; 19. Beyond the bounds of order? Collective security, general disarmament, and international law, 1919–1935 Haakon A. Ikonomou; 20: The internationalisation of human rights and the League of Nations, 1920–1939 Dzovinar Kévonian; 21: The League of Nations, the United States, and the codification of international law Vera Fritz; Conclusion: The League of Nations, international law and beyond Haakon A. Ikonomou, Karin van Leeuwen and Morten Rasmussen; Archives.