The league of Nations - Czech and Hungarian Minority Policy in Central Europe

and Hungarian Minority Petitions*

Introduction

Within the strict and rather rigid framework of the Paris Peace Settlement, which established the new international politicai system after the First World War, the League of Nations and its ideals re-presented the flexible element. Such flexibility was based on the intention - or mere promise - that by means of its activities this international organisation for world peace would reduce the gulf between the victors and the defeated, promote multifaceted inter-national co-operation, and establish means for improving its own performance. The peaceful settlement of disputes, the increasing role of international jurisdiction, and the collective deliberation and resolution of economic, labour, cultural, social and healrh issues, represented the backbone of an extremely ambitious programme.

Nevertheless, the programme lacked political, ideological and institutional antecedents. lts implementation would have been exceedingly difficult even if the general international situation had favoured co-operation, But this was far from being the case. Indeed, the war had actually deepened antagonisms between the great powers,

This study was supported bythe Eötvös Seholarship of the Hungarian Seholarship Com-mittee (2002) and the Bolyai János Research Fellowship (2004-2006), for which assistance 1am grateful.

while the peace settlement had created many new tensions between the smaller countries and had preserved many of the older ones.

Still, supporters of the League of Nations were driven by a differ-ent rationale - one that sprang from recognition that, in order to survive, humankind had no choice but to replace traditional great power rivalries with international co-operation. This view was shared, in different measure and for different reasons, by members of the public and professional politicians in many places around the world.

Most war-weary people, embued with a spirit of liberalism, tolerance and humanism, placed their belief in the complex ideals of the League of Nations and greater international co-operation. For the defeated countries, the hope was that co-operation would lead to better relations in general and an improvement in their own situation.

The victorious powers, meanwhile, thought that if all parties were able to progress beyond hostile relations, this would render the entire peace settlement acceptable to the defeated states. Although some diplomats and politicians were sincere and altruistic supporters of the League of Nations, nevertheless many of them were principally interested in using the new institution to promote national interests.

Representatives of the smaller states were generally supportive of the League, for its establishment with a membership of more than 50 states served to broaden the range of actors participating in inter-national affairs. For their part, the politicians of the major powers were convinced that classical diplomacy in its traditional forms would continue to be viable even under the new framework.

The League of Nations was officially established with the entry into force of the Treaty of Versailles on 10 January 1920. Although the body formally existed until 18 Aprill946, it ceased politicai activities as early as 1940. During the two decades of the League's functioning, its initial successes and many subsequent failures were used both bysupporters and by critics to substantiate their respective claims - although no politicai actor could ever have been satisfied with the entire work of the organisation. Even so, there were many lessons to be learnt from the League of Nations, in terms of the functioning of the international system and opportunities for inter-national co-operation. The founders' intention was that the League should serve as a regulatory framework for the international political system. But this hope proved to be illusory in many respects. In fact, on the contrary, it was the major powers and world politicai

develop-ments that proved capable of influencing and determining the mecha-nis ms and activities of the League.

Thus, a broad range of intentions and considerations - from altruism to cynicism - influenced the development and application of the standards and mechanisms comprising the international protec-tion of minorities, one of the most important elements of the League of Nations system. In the following, we examine the operarion of the new system, based on the example of petitions submitted by Hun-garian minorities. We attempt to show how the League's mechanisms for minority protection were used by the various parties involved: the governments of the kin state and the ruling states, the officials and decision-making bodies of the Leagues of Nations, and the national minorities themselves.

The new system of minority protection

The codification of new international regulations governing minority protection began at the Paris Peace Conference with the drafting of standard treaty texts. Then, in the early 1920s, the process continued with the signing of special bilateral treaties.l The process was

necess-ary because although the peace treaties concluding the First World

Internationallegal experts, diplomats, historians and political scientists have written many works on the system ofminority protection between the two world wars. Of such works, for this paper weused above a1l those whose content or author was closely connected with the subject matter asindicated bythetitle.Among the works written by senior staff of theLeague concerned with minority protection, seeHelmer Rosting, Protection ofminorities by the League of Nations, TheAmerican Journal ofInternational Law 1923, pp. 641-660; Pablo de Azcárate y Flórez, League of Nations and National Minorities. An Experiment, Washington 1945; Idem: La Soáété desNations et la protection des minorités, Geneve 1969.- For the writ-ings ofHungarian diplornats, seeA kisebbségijogok védelmének kézikönyve [Manual of Pro-tection ofMinority Righrs], with an introduction by Gyula Wlassics. Compiled byZoltán Baranyai, Berlin 1925; Ferenc Mengele, A NépszövetJégjogi espolitikai rendszere[The Legal and Political System of the League of Nations], Budapest 1927; Elek Nagy,Magyarország és a Népszövetség. Politikai tanulmány [Hungary and theLeague ofNations. APoliticaI Srudy], Budapest 1930. - For historiealliterature relating to Hungarian affairs seeMarie- Renée Mouton, La Société des Nations et la protection des minorites. Example delaTransyioanie (1920-1928). (These pour docrorat de30me cycle.), Paris 1969;Andrea R.Süle,ANemzetek Szövetségének kisebbségvédelmi rendszereés gyakorlata 1919-1938 [The Minority Protection System and Practice of the League of Nations, 1919-1938], (Manuscript) Budapest, n.d.;

József Galántai, Trianon ésa kisebbségvédelem. Akisebbségvédelem nemzetközijogrendjének kialakítása 1919-1920 [Trianon and Minority Protection. The Development of the Inter-national Legal System ofMinority Protection], Budapest 1989.

War had redrawn the map of Europe in accordance with the principle of national self-determination, nevertheless 62 million Europeans (13 per cent of the total population) were still living in minority status. The authors of the peace, instead of urging the holding oflocal plebisci tes in disputed areas, argued that the legal mechanisms of minority protection should be made available to national minorities.

Contractual protection for certain ethni c and religious groups had alreadyarisen at international level: for instance, at the Congress of Berlin of 1878 on political relations in the Balkans. But such agree-ments were not very reassuring, since only the signatory parties were concerned about their practical application. For this reason, violations were commonplace and usually went unpunished-'

The "victors" in the war, who were the original members of the League of Nations, and in particular the victorious great powers, who were determined to reform the international system, wished to avoid a recurrence of failure. For them the issue of minority protection was of international importance, and they urged its regulation in multi-lateral international treaties offering more robust guarantees. Both theorectically and in practice, their approach was a novel one. The legal novelty was the enhanced guarantee: the League of Nations the principal politicai organisation of the international community -offered its assurance that the new minority protection regulations would be adhered to. The League's Council was responsible for making amendments to the minority protection provisions and for taking action against violating parties.

The minority protection requirements imposed on the defeated states (Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Turkey) were contained in their respective peace treaties signed between 1919 and 1923. Mean-while, a few minor states that had been raised to the level of the victors (Czechoslovakia, Greece, Poland, Romania, and the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) were compelled to sign separate minority protection treaties with the great powers in 1919-1920. Several other countries (Albania, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania) under-to ok under-to protect their respective national minorities in declarations made to the Council in the course of 1921-1923. Protection for the German minorities of Upper Silesia and the Memel Territory was laid down in international conventions signed between Poland and

2 Azcárate, La SociétédesNations, p.20.

Germany in 1922 and between Lithuania and Germany in 1924.

Finally, Iraq undertook to protect its minorities on independence in 1930.These were the minority protection regulations that were placed under the League of Nations' guarantee - which the League under-took to enforce. (The precise mechanism was that if one of these treaties or agreements were violated, the aggrieved party or parties could submit acomplaint to the League.)3

Nevertheless, these new minority protection regulations applied only to Central and Eastern Europe, as well as to Iraq, a form er League of Nations mandate. The victorious great powers themselves undertook no such commitments, even though large minorities of long-established or even indigenous peeples as well as immigrant groups, were living on the territories of Great Britain, France, Russia and the United States. As this "double standard" characterised the entire interwar period, the League's minority protection system served to mitigate merely the worst minority policy effects of the transfers of territory made at the expense of the defeated states.

The new provisions failed to provide collective rights to the minorities, but they did guarantee the following to citizens "who belong to racial, religious or linguistic minorities":

"(1) Equality of all nationals of the country before the law.

(2) Equality in the matter of civil and political rights, and of the admission to public posts, functions and honours.

(3) Equality of treatment and security in law and fact.

(4) Equality of all nationals of the country in the matter of establishing, managing and controlling charitable, religious and social institutions, schools and other educational establishments, with the right to use their own language, and to practise their religion freely therein

(5) Equality in the matter of employment of any language in private intercourse, in commerce, in religion, in the press or in pub-lications of any kind, or at public meetings."4

3 Thus, in Europe, the minority protection treaties guaranteed by the League covered 42 per cent (i.e, 26 million) of the 62 million individuals living under minority starus.

4 Azcárate, League ofNations, p. 60. The appended sources include the texts of the minority protection treaties signed with Czechoslovakia, with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, andwith Romania, which in terms of their logic, strucrure and provisions resem-bleorareidentical with each other and other minority protection treaties.

The procedure applicable to petitions

In the early months of the League's existence, petitions concerning the situation of national and - in many cases - religio us minorities were submitted to the Conference of Ambassadors, which was a pre-paratory decision-making body of the Paris Peace Conference rather than of the League ofNations. However, as minority protection began to faU under the League of N ations' guarantee in the course of 1920, the need arose for a precise procedure applicable to petitions. The first draft of the procedure was adopred in the autumn of 1920. The procedure was amended on several occasions in the course of the decade and finalised only in 1929.

A precise description of the procedure was made for the first time on 25 October 1920: it was then that the Council decided that petitions - which had to be submitted to the Secretary-General of the League of Nations because the minority protection treaties were subject to the League's guarantee - should be forwarded by the Secretary-General (Eric Drummond, Great Britain, until 1933, and then Joseph Avenol, France) to the Council, the state against which the petition had been filed, and other member states. The Council chairman, together with two members appointed by him - jointly referred to as the Committee ofThree - were required to examine the petitions filed,

The leaders of the multinational states considered this solution to be prejudicial or injurious. Thus, at the behest mainly of Czecho-slovakia and Poland (the states with jurisdiction over Europe's largest German and Slavic minorities), on 27 June 1921 the procedure was so amended that member states should only become aequainted with a minority petition if the response of the defendant state had been appended.

Another amendment favourable to the multinational states was made on 5 September 1923. The amendment imposed stricter require-ments on petitioners. Thereafter petitions

"(a) Must have in view the protection of minorities in accordance with the treaties;

(b) In particular, must not be submitted in the form of a request for the severance of politicai relations between the minority in question and the State of which it forms a part;

(d) Must abstain from violent language;

(e) Must contain information or refer to facts which have not recently been the subject of a petition submitted to the ordinary procedure."5

In effect, this regulation formulated what had already become standard practice, asthe Minorities Section of the Secretariat prepar-ed cases for the Council based largely on such considerations. (A signi-ficant change was, however, that if a defendant state disagreed with the Secretariat's proposal, it could appeal tothe Committee ofThree, which then reviewed the receivability of the petition.) A further tightening of the ruleswasthat documents arisingin the course of the procedure (the petition, the response of the defendant government, and the reports of the Committee of Three and the Council) were only circulated among members of the Council.

An amendment of 10 June 1925 excluded representatives of any state that was somehow involved in the particular minority issue from being members of the Committee of Three. Thus, citizens of the defendant country or of anyneighbouring state could not take part in the procedure; nor could representatives of a state in which the majority population was of the same nationality as the complainant minority.

Ali these amendments served to improve the position of the multinational states and placed (potential) petitioners at an increasing disadvantage. Bythe late 1920s, this was causing dissatisfaction even among states that had no interest in minority issues.As we shall see below, the League's minority protection system tended to be rather strict when dealing with petitioners and excessively lax when dealing with defend ant states. As a result, many parties regarded the system as partial and biased. Petitioners, for instance, were not allowed to take part in the adjudication process. Indeed, theyreceived no official information about the state of the inquiry.Yet,at the time, the Secre-tariat disqualified roughly one in two petitions on formal grounds.

(Petitioners also faced the problem of manifestly mild judgements and non-implementation bythe defendant state.)

General dissatisfaction with the shift in the balance of power to the disadvantage of the national minorities led finally to a partial reversal. An amendment on 13 June 1929 improved the position of

5 Azcárate, Leagueof Nations, pp.103-104.

petitioners to the extent that the procedure became more prompt and transparent, as follows: 1. Petitioners had to be informed if their petition was rejected, 2. If necessary the Chairman of the Council could appoint four members to passjudgement on apetition (Com-mittee of Five) , 3. Com(Com-mittees ofThree could also convene between Council sessions, 4. If the Committee ofThree did not propose the adoption of a petition on to the Council agenda, then it had to inform Council members in writing of the results of its inquiry, while once a year the Secretary-General would bring these reports to Council members' notice, 5. The Council urged that if the affected state consented, the Committee ofThree should forward its reports to aU member states, 6.The Secretary-General published annual statistics on the petitions procedure.v

On behalf of the Hungarian government, Count Albert Apponyi, Head ofthe H ungarian Delegation to the League of N ations, spoke on three occasions (1924, 1925 and 1930) to the Assembly about the need for a reform of the petition procedure. His main suggestions were that the minority complaints of any national group or member state should be made public; that the Council should be required to place them on its agenda; that the representatives of a petitioner should be heardat each stage of the procedure; and that the Permanent Court of International Justice should participate in the proceedings at the veryleast bysubmitting an avis consultatif Apponyi's speeches were praised for their rhetorical effect and even met with the agreement of some delegates, but there was still no political will for implementing such reforms.?

By 1930, the established form of the complaint procedure was as follows: the petition - which could be submitted byaprivate indivi-dual,minority organisation, church or government, asits purpose was merely to draw a minority grievance to the attention of the League

6 The changes in the procedure aremade known in thevolumes of theAnnuaire de laSociété desNations 1927-1938, György Ottlik (ed.)

7 Following Apponyi's firstspeech of9 September 1924, Paul Hymans, the Council's Belgian chairman, stated frankly that the Council could not accept the proposals. because to do so would amount tocapirulating tothe Hungarian politician. Magyar Országos Levéltár [Na-tional Hungarian Archives] (MOL) Külügyminiszrériumi Levéltár, A Nemzetek Szövetsé-gemellett működő magyar Titkárság - Magyar képviselet a Nemzetek Szövetségénél (here-inafier cired asMOL, K 107), 12.cs.,16/2-924/1924. Letter ofZoltán Baranyai, head of Mission toGeneva, to Sándor Khuen-Héderváry, head ofthe Politicai Department ofthe Foreign Ministry (draft of 13. 10.1924).

and thereby initiate an inquiry - was brought to the Minority Section of the Secretariat for a forrnal appraisal. If the petition fulfilled the forrnal requirements, the Section (formally, the Secretary-General) communicated the petition to the defendant government, requesting its observations. Meanwhile, it began preparations for the case.

Having received the defendant state's response - which theoretically had to be made within two months, but the deadline could be various-ly extended - the Section forwarded the matter to the Council, which then appointed the Committee ofThree (or possibly a committee of five). During an inquiry, the Committee of Three consulted with representatives of the defendant state, but it never requested infor-mation from the petitioner. It then made a proposal concerning a remedy for the grievance or the withdrawal of the case. For the sake of a thorough inquiry and if warranted by the importance of the case, it could sub mit a case to the Council. Thereupon the Council appointed a Rapporteur, who undertook an inquiry in the matter, presenting his report to the Council plenum, where a representative of the defendant government was also heard. Under

In document Czech and Hungarian Minority Policy in Central Europe (Pldal 83-114)