Founded in the wake of the First World War, the League of Nations was established in order to provide the world with relief from armed conflict. The Covenant of the League of Nations forms the first part of the Versailles peace treaties of 1919 and 1920. The formal life of this organisation began on January 10, 1920 and its inauguration occurred on January16, 1920 with the first session of its Council in Paris. The Covenant outlined the goals, organs, procedures and commitments of the League, which headquarters was set up in Geneva. As an essentially political organisation, the League was entrusted with keeping peace through international law, arms control, conference diplomacy, and the idea of collective security. The League of Nations was officially dissolved on April 18, 1946 and its assets were transferred to the newly established United Nations.
Fridtjof Nansen, High Commissioner for Refugees of the League of Nations (1921-1930)
The Norwegian scientist, Arctic explorer and politician F. Nansen (1861-1930) started his humanitarian work at the end of the World War I. At first Nansen worked as a private person but in the spring of 1920 he was appointed as a League of Nations High Commissioner for Prisoners of War. As a result of his work, some 450,000 ex-prisoners of war from twenty-six countries returned to their homes. In August 1921 the Council of the League appointed F. Nansen as the High Commissioner for Russian Refugees. Furthermore, Nansen played an instrumental role in organising emergency relief to famine victims in Russia in 1921-1923 and in 1922 he occupied himself with the problem of refugees from Asia Minor.
In addition to a small staff in Geneva, Nansen appointed delegates in refugee-hosting countries in order to keep in touch with governmental officials, private voluntary organisations, and the refugees themselves. By 1923 Nansen deleted the word "Russian" from his title and was now called High Commissioner for Refugees, for in the meantime the problem of Greek and Armenian refugees had arisen. As, with the time the general issue of refugees became more linked to the problem of their employment, administrative and financial support of the High Commissioner's Office on January 1, 1925 was transferred to the Refugee Section of the International Labour Office (ILO). The High Commissioner's Office now occupied itself not only with Russian, Greek, Armenian, but also with Turkish, Assyrian, and other refugees, and remained within the administration of the ILO until 1929. On January 1, 1930 the High Commissioner's Office returned to the Secretariat of the League of Nations. When in April 1931 it was reorganized into an autonomous Nansen Office for Refugees under the jurisdiction of the League, the High Commissioner Nansen was already dead.
Refugee work under the authority of the League of Nations (United Nations) after Nansen (1931-1952)
Nansen Office for Refugees continued its work with Russian and Near Eastern refugees. From 1935 until its official closure end of 1938, it also occupied itself with refugees from the Saar, but not with those from Germany proper. Therefore, in order to deal with the problem of those refugees, Jewish and other, which had escaped from the national-socialist regime in Germany, another autonomous office under the patronage of the League was established in London in 1933. In 1936 this office was integrated into the League of Nations administrative system, keeping its High Commissioner for German refugees, whose competence also extended upon new refugees from Austria and Czechoslovakia (Sudetenland). After its liquidation in 1938, along with the liquidation in the same year of the aforementioned Nansen Office, new administrative bodies for refugee work were created. General assistance towards the refugees (Russian, Armenian, from the Saar and Nazi Germany) and co-ordination of activities exercised on their behalf were placed under the direction of the High Commissariat for Refugees under the Protection of the League of Nations, re-established in London in September 1938. In 1939, according to the decisions of the Evian Intergovernmental conference, an exterior to the League Inter-Governmental Committee for Refugees (IGCR) was created in London, again with the responsibility for refugees from Germany and Austria.
If, after 1946 the refugee work, which started with Nansen High Commissioner¿s Office for Refugees and thus, the development of Nansen fonds, came to an end, this work continued further through subsequent institutions. The Inter-Governmental Committee worked until 1947 when it, in its turn, ceased to exist and was replaced by the International Refugee Organisation (IRO), an institution under the authority of the United Nations based in Geneva. This Organisation has also inherited the functions of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (1943-1947), an institution, which during the Second World War provided help for the prisoners of war and displaced persons, and never had official ties with the League of Nations. The International Refugee Organisation (1947-1952), finally, gave way to the still existing United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which was set up in 1951.