The League of Nations and International Law

In this episode, we explore the League of Nations' impact on the development of international law and global governance.

Editors Karin van Leeuwen and Morten Rasmussen explain how their Cambridge Handbook uses deep archival research across dozens of collections to reveal how the League used legal techniques, institutions and networks to shape a nascent form of global governance.

We explore the League’s legal section and court experiments, tensions between sovereign equality and imperial hierarchies, and case studies like Upper Silesia and the Manchurian crisis, as well as how the Handbook reframes the League as central to the development of international law and institutions, while noting the limits of ‘‘peace through law".

Resources:

• Ask a Librarian (ask.unog.ch/library)

• Ask an Archivist (unitednations.sharepoint.com/sites/UNOG_LIB-RM…)

• Ikonomou, H. A. et al. (eds.) (2026) The Cambridge Handbook of the League of Nations and International Law. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: Available via Global Search. (unog.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldis…)

Production:

Guests: Karin van Leeuwen & Morten Rasmussen

Host: Amy Smith

Recorded & produced at the United Nations Library & Archives Geneva.