Abstract
A RECORD of international organisations is kept by the Section of International Bureaux of the League of Nations, and is published as a half-yearly “Bulletin of Information on the Work of International Organisations”, and collected and compressed in a “Handbook of International Organisations”, of which the last Supplement is dated 1931. The information contained relates not to work organised by the League but to the voluntary international societies—“organisations internationales privies”—which exist outside the League, many of which are older than the League. They have an independent life of their own, but keep touch with the League. There appear to be certain features common to a number of these organisations and their conferences; for example, several of them feel the need of specialist international vocabularies of their own. At many of the conferences, League of Nations representatives have been present. More and more the conferences are grouping themselves, and many conferences are being attended by representatives of other conferences. Such groups are the educational, agricultural and economic conferences. For example, the “Liaison Committee of Major International Associations” represents more than twenty-four international organisations, mostly educational. The economic conferences are not under the dictation of Governments. Between them these societies are working out a world-policy which is years ahead of the present League of Nations. The number of societies is increasing, and they are increasingly specialised. The International Council of Scientific Unions does not cover everything, although it is an authorised channel of communications. New societies of all sorts keep on appearing. All this apparatus of voluntary societies may be thought of as advisory to the official governmental League of Nations. Possibly it is more important that the politicians should listen to the scientific workers, rather than that the latter should let themselves be entangled in political machinations.
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Handbook of International Organisations. Nature 137, 812 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137812d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137812d0