CEVAP:

Since the Second Hague Conference, there was a growing ‘peace front’ of political and civil society groups advocating the creation of an international organization. Zara Steiner (2000: 265) states that the war acted as a major catalyst for “reform movements within and outside elected governments in both the victorious and defeated states for the reconsideration of the premises on which the ‘old diplomacy’ rested and [they] demanded an overhaul of the diplomatic machinery of the prewar order.” There was a general belief that the prewar governments were primarily responsible for the outbreak of the major war. Particularly in Britain and the US, there were also peace movements consisting of intellectuals, civil pressure groups, and politicians who had adopted an anti-war posture (Wertheim, 2011: 797-834; Laity, 2001: 216-237). According to Wilson’s proposal, the League of Nations was supposed to be a community of democratic regimes which would accept the resolution of disputes through diplomacy and arbitration. The League would act as an assembly of states that would contribute to the development of international law. However, it was designed to be an intergovernmental organization rather than a supranational institution. It was considered a transition from the ‘old diplomacy’ to the ‘new diplomacy’ that would rely on a higher degree of compulsory jurisdiction. It was accepted that the great powers would still act as the core of the post-war system but “power balancing would be replaced by more legal and rule-based mechanisms of power management and dispute resolution” (Ikenberry, 2001: 117).