The first idea of ​​a supranational organization that knows how to guarantee the peace and well-being of everyone and of every people has a precedent in Immanuel Kant’ (1795) script For a perpetual peace in which the German philosopher proposed a legal order to protect world peace. Almost a century later, in 1864, a pacifist international diplomatic movement was born with the Geneva Convention. It reached its momentum during the Hague Convention (1907). The Confederation of the Hague States, in 1907, was already an alliance aiming at the disarmament and the use of diplomacy in disputes between nations.

The 1^st World War put an end to the Hague Convention but not to the aspirations for peace and international order. The idea of a League of Nations seems to have been of the English politician Edward Gray- then Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the British Empire -. Thomas Woodrow Wilson, the United States of America president, adopted the idea. He thought it was the only way to avoid conflicts like the World War, then under way. Woodrow Wilson included the project in his speech of 8^th January 1918 at the United States Congress where he also outlined a strategy to lay the foundations for a stable and lasting peace. The Paris Peace Conference of 1919-1920 fixed the terms of peace at the end of the 1^st World War and represented the momentum for the US President to propose the creation of a supranational organization to safeguard world peace. On 25^th January 1919, his proposal was accepted and a special commission with Wilson himself as president was entrusted with the task of drafting the statutes. These statutes - or Covenant of the League of Nations - were approved on 28^th April 1919 and included in the first part of the Treaty of Versailles and signed on 28^th June 1919 by 44 States, 31 of which had taken part in the War. The League of Nations (LoN) was born - the first intergovernmental organization with the commitment to enhance the well-being and quality of life of all people, to prevent wars by using diplomacy to resolve conflicts and to control arms. For this undertaking, President Thomas Woodrow Wilson, as its promoter, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in1919.

The work of the LoN officially began on January 10^th 1920 in London (United Kingdom) with the entry into force of the Treaty of Versailles and with the ratification by the States that had signed it on June 28^th, 1919. The United States did not sign for the opposition of the Republican Party to the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and never joined the League of Nations. A few days later, on January 16^th 1920, the Council met for the first time in Paris (France). On November 1^st, 1920 the headquarters of the LoN was moved from London to Geneva (Switzerland), where on November 15^th of the same year the 1^st General Assembly was held with the representatives of 41 nations (the signatory states of the Treaty of Versailles were 44), 26 of which were non-Europeans. The expansion of the LoN reached its highest number of 57 member states in 1935.

After a series of notable successes and failures, the outbreak of the 2^nd World War demonstrated the inability of the LoN to achieve its goals and in 1945 the United Nations (UN) was established. The LoN continued to exist beside the UN for a short period, but without the Soviet Union and the United States, with Germany, Italy and Japan among the losers of the 2^nd World War, coexistence was impossible and the LoN was dissolved on April 19^th, 1946.

Why did the League of Nations fail? The reasons given anticipate the current UN problems.

1-. It did not have armed forces. Occupying Abyssinia, Mussolini responded to the criticism of the LoN: "The League is good when sparrows shoot, but not when the eagles descend."

2-. A unanimous vote was required, which corresponded to a real and generalized veto.

3-. All clauses on racial equality were excluded by removing moral authority from the LoN.

4-. Not all nations did adhere to it. The United States never did. Two out of 4 permanent members of the Council and founding countries left it very soon: Japan in 1933 and Italy in 1937. Germany was a member only from 1926 to 1933 and the Soviet Union, joining in 1934, was expelled in 1939 when it invaded Finland and occupied Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

5-. The sanctions method proved to be ineffective such as for the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935.

6-. A non-permanent council and assembly made decisions slow.

All these despite, the diplomatic achievements of the LoN were a step forward compared to the previous century. It should be enough to recall the solution of the conflict between Sweden and Finland for the Åland Islands; the borders between Albania and Yugoslavia and the belonging of Upper Silesia to Germany or Poland - solved by plebiscite; then followed the addressed issues of Memel port city (today Klaipėda) and of the surrounding region; the aggression of Greece against Bulgaria; the return of the Saarland to Germany. Thanks to the LoN Mosul – yes the Mosul of ISIS - in 1926 became part of Iraq despite the claims of Turkey and after a series of conflicts Colombia and Peru, thanks also to the League of Nations intervention reached an agreement for the city of Leticia.

The LoN had neither a flag nor an official logo. An emblem, two five-pointed concentric stars inscribed in a blue pentagon representing the five continents and five races of humanity, was used unofficially and only very late. The official languages ​​were French (Société des Nations), English (League of Nations), Spanish (Sociedad de Naciones). The proposal to introduce Esperanto failed due to the French refusal, because French was at that time the language of diplomacy.

The LoN was structured in three sections: the Secretariat, at whose head was the general secretary, the council and the assembly. Each member had a seat in the Assembly, which held its sessions once a year in September. The President of the General Assembly held office for a year. The LoN also had numerous agencies and commissions later inherited by the UN: the International Court of Justice; the World Health Organization of Work; and the commissions for refugees, for disarmament, for medicine, against slavery and for women's rights.

A less known aspect of the LoN, however significant of the attitude that the UN was to keep long after, is that of "mandates", whose nature and interventions were established in the Bylaws Act. 22. The territories, subject to mandate were the former colonies of the German Empire and, in the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire. The mandates were of three types. Those that belonged to the

- Type A, the territories, a dozen, that had "reached a state of development", making them able to become "independent nations". Among these, interesting to note, there were Syria and Lebanon entrusted to France, and Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq entrusted to the United Kingdom.

- Type B, the territories in which the mandatory State guaranteed security, freedom of conscience and religion, and the prohibition of trade in slaves, in war weapons, in alcohol, and above all protected the commercial rights of the Member States of the LoN.

- Type C, the territories with low population, small size and far from the metropolis.

There were four mandatory States: the British Empire, France, Belgium and Japan. In reality, the territories subjected to mandate were administered as colonies and became independent, with the exception of Iraq, only at the end of the 2^nd World War, in a process of often violent decolonization.