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The Information Section represented the Press Office of the Secretariat.

The Covenant of the League of Nations stipulated that all matters brought before the Assembly, the Council and other bodies of the League of Nations were to be made available to the public whenever possible.

The Information Section provided journalists, press representatives, special correspondents and other interested parties, with information on the work of the League of Nations. It was also responsible for collecting and supplying information to the Secretariat and was, thus, allowed to send information missions outside.

The Information Section published press releases, reports and specific articles, collected from the League of Nations' monthly "Official Journal". It also published the annual reports of the Secretary-General, the registered Treaties, as well as the periodicals, monographs and other documents (pamphlets, films etc.) of the various Sections of the Secretariat, when these documents had to be circulated outside. However, not all documents intended for the public or the press were prepared by the Information Section. Its primary task was preparing documents about general questions or advertising concerning the League of Nations' activities, and was helped in the publication of these documents by the Publications and Reproduction of Documents Service.

The Information Section also prepared the work for the League of Nations' radio, called "Radio-Nations", that started its bi-weekly broadcasts in 1932.

External offices (in London, Paris, Tokyo, Bombay, New Delhi, Roma, Berlin etc.) were more or less directly dependent on the Information Section, but their archives are considered as external fonds.

In 1934, the Information Section was merged into the Political Section headed by

J. Nogueira. Although this Section officially disappeared in 1940 its activities were carried on by Department I.

The Political Section used to act as a Diplomatic Service within the Secretariat.

It had two main categories of responsibilities:

• to deal with international tension affairs under the competency of the League of Nations;
• to deal with the admission and withdrawal demands to the League of Nations.

Moreover, the Political Section dealt, on an information basis, with many various affairs.

The League of Nations' more specific political work has mainly been carried out in five directions:

• the improvement of the instrument of peace entrusted to it. (Refers to the 1919 Covenant of the League of Nations organised by a powerful group of States determined to prevent the repetition of such a calamity as the Great War. The idea was that of organizing the world justly and fairly. Gradually, between 1920 and 1932, the great majority of neutrals and all the former enemies of the founder States became Members of the League of Nations);
• the reduction of armaments (see Disarmament Section);
• the supervision of the territories placed under the mandate of various States (see Mandates Section);
• the execution of minority obligations assumed by treaty (see Minorities Section);
• and the settlement of the various international disputes between 1919 and 1935.

In 1933, because of the creation of a "Central Section", the Political Section was no longer in charge of the admission and withdrawal demands to the League of Nations, as well as some diplomatic or formal responsibilities.

In 1934, the Information Section was merged into the Political Section headed by
J. Nogueira and was responsible for Latin America questions and for Administrative Commissions.

In 1939, the Political Section officially disappeared and its activities were transferred to Department I.

The Political, Legal, Technical, etc. Sections used to work together in cooperation. Thus it was not easy to decide in what Section certain documents should be classified, even if, in principle, only one of these Sections was in charge of a specific affair and used to receive the "action copy" of letters or reports in order to take decisions or actions. This is the reason why the Several Sections, Political and Technical was set up by Y. Pérotin (in charge of the Archives of the League of Nations from 1966 to 1969) to collect all the files from the different political and technical Units of the Secretariat, that could not be assigned to one Section rather than another.

Some of the files of these several Sections also emanated from the "Central Section" created by J. Avenol and from offices or cabinets of the higher civil servants.

The "Several Sections, Political and Technical" reflects the preparation done by several sections for the work of the sessions of the Assembly and of the Council for helping them in the implementation of their decisions.

It concerned:

• questions processed by the Assembly, such as the organization of the League of Nations, the rules of procedure of the Assembly, admission of delegations of States to the League of Nations, representation of women in the Assembly or representation of voluntary associations, etc., or
• questions processed by the Council, such as the composition of the Council and correspondence with governments, or
• miscellaneous questions such as refugees, war disabled and pensioners, widows and orphans, protection of wild animals and birds, etc. as well as,
• more administrative or technical questions such as broadcasting of proceedings of the Assembly, publication of the Assembly agenda, languages used by Member States of the League of Nations, correspondence, petitions, claims etc.

The "Central Section" was created by J. Avenol in 1933 to assist the Secretary-General in coordinating the work of the Secretariat and more specifically, in preparing the work of the sessions of the Assembly and of the Council and in implementing their decisions.

This Section concerning several Sections of the Secretariat is very important and useful for all kind of researches and should be systematically consulted by everyone doing research on the League of Nations. Everyone should particularly have a look at all the files of Section 40 about general issues on the League of Nations.

The main functions of the Director were:

• to ensure the most effective use of the facilities of the UNOG;
• to exercise administrative authority over all members of the United Nations staff attached to UNOG;
• to represent the Secretary-General with the Swiss Federal Government and the local authorities at Geneva;
• to carry out such duties as may be specifically delegated to him from Headquarters.
  (Secretary General's Bulletin SGB/82 dated 1 July 1948)

The Director of UNOG reported directly to the Assistant Secretary-General in charge of Conference and General Services.
The Assistant Secretary-General in charge of Conference and General Services represented UNOG as a whole at Headquarters.
All communications to UNOG were channelled through Assistant Secretary-General in charge of Conference and General Services.
All correspondence from UNOG to Headquarters were forwarded to the Assistant Secretary-General in charge of Conference and General Services which was responsible for proper routing of these communications at Headquarters.
In 1955, the report of the Survey Group addressed to the Secretary-General suggested that it would accord "to the Director a large measure of authority in respect of the substantive activities of the Office, and possibly provide also, in the field of administration, for a post of Deputy Under-Secretary" (Doc. A/3049, p. 3).

In 1959, the Director is called " Director of the European Office of the United Nations, Representing the Secretary-General " (Yearbook 1959, IC/Geneva/744 29 January 1960) before being denominated in 1960 "Under-Secretary, Director of the European Office of the United Nations" (IC/Geneva 789 27 December 1960).
As of 1 March 1960, the Director was named " Under-Secretary " (ST/SGB/123 1 March 1960).
From 1 January 1966, the position of UNOG Director was changed to Director-General of UNOG. The Deputy Director was changed to Assistant Director-General.(IC/ Geneva/1133)

UNOG Directors and Directors-General (1946-1973)

- 05-1946/09-1952: Wlodzimierz (Wladimir) Moderow (Poland), Director of the European Office of the United Nations, representing the Secretary-General (IC/Geneva/49 dated April 15th 1947) then European Office Director, European Office of the United Nations (Press Release No. 693 dated 2 February 1948)
- 04-1952/12-1957: Adriannus Pelt (Netherlands)
- 05-01-1958/30-6-1968:  Pier P. Spinelli (Italy)
- 27-06-1968/24-01-1978:  Vittorio Winspeare-Guicciardi (Italy)

The International Tin Council was established in 1956, following on from the work of the International Tin Study Group, which was established in 1947 to survey the world supply and demand of tin. The ITC aims were to promote the achievement of a long-term balance between world production and consumption of tin, and to prevent excessive fluctuation in price. This was achieved by the creation and operation of a buffer stock system involving mandatory contributions by producer and consumer countries, the fixing of floor and ceiling prices, and the regulation of exports. The activities of the Council were governed by a series of six 5-year Agreements, commencing in 1956. The sixth agreement was extended for a further two years in 1987. The Council was dissolved in 1990.