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Period: to
Events Occured during 20-21th century
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Rise of the League of Nations
In 1919, an intergovernmental organization called the League of Nations was founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. The goal for the League of Nations was to maintain world peace and which would sort out international disputes as and when they occurred. For example, the organization sometimes had failure but was generally successful at preventing wars through collective security or setting international disputes through negotiation and arbitration. -
War between Russia and Poland
In 1920, Poland invaded land held by the Russians and after a year Russia had to sign a treaty of Riga which handed over nearly 80,000 square kilometers of Russian land. The League of Nations did nothing to do about this violation of another country by Poland. The Allied invasion of Russia was a failure and it only served to make Communist Russia even more antagonistic to the West. -
The Aaland Islands
The Aaland Islands are near enough equal distant between Finland and Sweden, where it traditionally belonged to Finland. The people had to come to a decision as to who owned the islands and in 1921 the League made a decision that they should remain with Finland but that no weapons should ever be kept there. -
Italy and Albania
In 1923, several survey teams from different nationality backgrounds were sent out to solve the issue of the border between Italy and Albania. However, the Italian section of the survey team became separated from the main party; the five Italians were shot who had been in hiding. Then, Italy accused Greece and asked for a payment of a large fine where Greece refused to do pay them. As a response, the Italians sent its navy to the Greek island of Corfu and bombarded the coastline. Greece appealed -
Turkey
The League did respond to the humanitarian crisis caused by the bloody war in Turkey. For instance, 1,400,000 refugees had been created by this war with 80% of them being women and children; there were many diseases spread among these people. So the League sent experts and doctors from the Health Organization. Money was also invested in seeds, wells and digging tools and by 1926, work was found for 600,000 people. -
Greece and Bulgaria
In 1925, a Greek soldier was killed by sentries patrolling the common border between Greece and Bulgaria. As a result, the Greek army invaded Bulgaria, and the Bulgarians asked the League for help. The League of Nations ordered both armies to stop fighting and that the Greeks should pull out of Bulgaria. Then, the League sent experts to the area and decided that Greece was to blame and fined her £45,000. Both nations accepted the decision. -
The Creation of the World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programs. Its official goal is the reduction of poverty. According to the World Bank's Articles of Agreement, all of its decisions must be guided by a commitment to promote foreign investment, international trade and facilitate capital investment. -
Rise of the United Nations
The United Nations officially came into existence in 1945, when the UN Charter had been ratified by a majority of the original 51 Member States. The day is now celebrated each year around the world as United Nations Day. The purpose of the United Nations is to bring all nations of the world together to work for peace and development, based on the principles of justice, human dignity and the well-being of all people. It affords the opportunity for countries to balance global interdependence. -
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The U.N. has also made great strides in raising the consciousness of human rights beginning with the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” adopted by the General Assembly in 1948. The U.N. Commission on Human Rights through its investigations and technical assistance in promoting free and fair elections has helped many countries in the transition to democracy. The U.N.’s intense attention to specific human rights abuses helped end apartheid in South Africa. -
The World Bank Administrative Tribunal established
In 1980, the World Bank Administrative Tribunal was established to decide on disputes between the World Bank Group and its staff where allegation of non-observance of contracts of employment or terms of appointment had not been honored. -
Uruguay Round
In response to the problems identified in the 1982 Ministerial Declaration, the eighth GATT round — known as the Uruguay Round — was launched in September 1986, in Punta del Este, Uruguay. It was the biggest negotiating mandate on trade ever agreed: the talks were going to extend the trading system into several new areas, notably trade in services and intellectual property, and to reform trade in the sensitive sectors of agriculture and textiles. -
Seizing food intended for starving citizens of Somalia
In 1993, a U.N. mission failed to prevent local warlords from seizing food intended for starving citizens of Somalia. A U.S.-led U.N. military campaign to apprehend the warlords resulted in the disastrous Battle of Mogadishu. Nineteen U.S. military soldiers were killed and in 1994 U.S. forces withdrew from the region. -
The genocide in Rwanda
In 1994, the U.N. peacekeeping forces under the direction of current Secretary General Kofi Annan failed to respond to the genocide in Rwanda in which over 800,000 Hutus and Tutsis were killed by the Rwandan military and militia groups. It was the culmination of longstanding ethnic competition and tensions between the minority Tutsi, who had controlled power for centuries, and the majority Hutu peoples, who had come to power in the rebellion of 1959–62 and overthrown the Tutsi monarchy. -
Rise of World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only international organization dealing with the global rules of trade between nations. Its main function is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible. For instance, it controls implementation of trade agreements concluded by the WTO member-states. -
The inaugural ministerial conference
The Ministerial Conference can take decisions on all matters under any of the multilateral trade agreements. The inaugural ministerial conference was held in Singapore in 1996. Disagreements between largely developed and developing economies emerged during this conference over four issues initiated by this conference, which led to them being collectively referred to as the "Singapore issues". -
The fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar
The work program, the Doha Development Agenda (DDA), adds negotiations and other work on non-agricultural tariffs, trade and environment, WTO rules such as anti-dumping and subsidies, investment, competition policy, trade facilitation, transparency in government procurement, intellectual property, and a range of issues raised by developing countries as difficulties they face in implementing the present WTO agreements. -
The Doha Round
The Doha Round is the latest round of trade negotiations among the WTO membership. Its aim is to achieve major reform of the international trading system through the introduction of lower trade barriers and revised trade rules. The work programme covers about 20 areas of trade. The Round is also known semi-officially as the Doha Development Agenda as a fundamental objective is to improve the trading prospects of developing countries. -
Attack on Haitian slums
In July of 2005, U.N. peacekeepers were accused of attacking two Haitian slums killing an undetermined number of unarmed residents in the attempt to disarm criminal gangs and former members of Haiti’s disbanded army. -
The 2005 World Summit
In September of 2005 a world summit were held at U.N. headquarters in New York for a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to take bold decisions in the area of development, security, human rights and reform of the United Nations.” The agenda for this meeting was ambitious; ground breaking proposals to promote democracy worldwide, protect human rights, end poverty, and meet the threat of global terrorism. -
The sixth WTO ministerial conference
The sixth WTO ministerial conference was considered vital if the four-year-old Doha Development Agenda negotiations were to move forward sufficiently to conclude the round in 2006. In this meeting, countries agreed to phase out all their agricultural export subsidies by the end of 2013, and terminate any cotton export subsidies by the end of 2006. -
International Development Association Loan Announced
Forty-five countries pledged US$25.1 billion in "aid for the world's poorest countries", aid that goes to the World Bank International Development Association (IDA) which distributes the loans to eighty poorer countries. While wealthier nations sometimes fund their own aid projects, including those for diseases, and although IDA is the recipient of criticism, -
Structural adjustment programme (SAP) introduced
In 1980, the Bank introduced adjustment lending under its structural adjustment programme (SAP) to provide financing to countries experiencing balance of payments problems while stabilisation measures took effect. These loans are provided to countries for social, structural and sectoral reforms, for example for the development of national financial and judicial institutions.
