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Sandrine Kott, Eva-Maria Muschik and Elisabeth Roehrlich (ed.), International Organizations and the Cold War. Competition, Cooperation and Convergence, London, Bloomsbury, 2025.

Abstract

The post-WWII era was a time of superpower confrontation
and antagonistic bloc politics, but it was also a period in which
organized internationalism reached its peak as both an ideological
value and a political practice. This open access volume explores
how international organizations affected the evolution and nature
of Cold War rivalries, and how they in turn were shaped by them.
In seeking to understand the role that international organizations
have played as sites of confrontation, this volume also highlights
their role as spaces for mediation and negotiation, particularly
for middle-size powers and colonized or newly decolonized
countries. Through multiple perspectives, based on a diverse
array of historical sources, the authors collectively explore how
international organizations were able to bridge and move beyond
the Cold War divide by promoting common causes and shaping
common scientific knowledge, communities, and practices.
Rather than focusing exclusively on western-dominated
institutions within the UN system which have received the most
scholarly attention to date, International Organizations and the
Cold War highlights the role of lesser-known groups such as
the Paris-based International Child Center, the Prague-based
International Union of Students and historical actors such as
Soviet public health experts and Chinese development specialists.
Sandrine Kott is Professor of History at the University of Geneva,
Switzerland. Her most recent book A World More Equal, An
Internationalist Perspective on the Cold War (2024) studies the Cold
War through the lenses of international organizations.
Eva-Maria Muschik is a historian and Assistant Professor at the
University of Vienna, Austria. Her book, Building States, on the UN
Secretariat, development and decolonization was published in 2022.
Elisabeth Roehrlich is Associate Professor of History at the
University of Vienna, Austria. Her book Inspectors for Peace on
the International Atomic Energy Agency was published in 2022.

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Cannabis amnesia – Indian hemp parley at the Office International d’Hygiène Publique in 1935

Abstract

Background: In 2016-2019, the WHO Expert Committee on Drug Dependence scientifically reviewed cannabis products. In that context, multiple references to a previous and similar assessment dating back to 1935 were made; but the content, outcome, and stakeholders involved in the 1935 review were unclear.

Method: Transnational historiography of the international conversation on cannabis control in and around 1935, based on previously-unavailable primary material from international organisations, archives, and literature searches.

Results: Two evaluations were undertaken in 1935 and 1938 by the “Comité des Experts Pharmacologistes” convened under the “Office International d’Hygiène Publique” (OIHP), predecessor of the WHO. Five specific medicines marketed by Parke-Davis were briefly reviewed, based on which the Experts recommended placing under international control all cannabis medicines –prior to that, only pure extracts were under control. The measure was confusing; few State Parties to the 1925 Convention implemented it; the second World War precipitated its oblivion. The international community resumed work on cannabis under the WHO in 1952; that same year, the OIHP was definitely closing its doors. No trace of the 1935 events appeared in any post-war proceeding.

Conclusion: Political biasses and numerous methodological and ethical issues surround the 1935 episode: it cannot legitimately be called a “scientific assessment.” The role of stakeholders like Egypt and the OIHP in norm entrepreneurship and advocacy for multilateral controls over cannabis have been largely forgotten; that of the USA somewhat exaggerated. There might be other forgotten pieces of History: predecessor of WHO, the under-documented OIHP had mandates on other important fields, be it drug or epidemics control. Much knowledge on the History of humankind lays in unexplored archival records; errors made and lessons learnt from the past could inform our management of the conflict between public health and politics today. 

 

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WHO’s first scientific review of medicinal Cannabis: from global struggle to patient implications

Abstract

Background – ‘‘Cannabis’’ and ‘‘cannabis resin’’ are derived from the Cannabis plant, used as herbal medications, in traditional medicine and as active pharmaceutical ingredients. Since 1961, they have been listed in Schedule IV, the most restrictive category of the single convention on narcotic drugs. The process to scientifically review and reschedule them was launched by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on 2 December 2016; it survived a number of hindrances until finally being submitted to a delayed and sui generis vote by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs on 2 December 2020, withdrawing ‘‘cannabis’’ and ‘‘cannabis resin’’ from Schedule IV.

Design/methodology/approach – To evaluate WHO’s scheduling recommendations, the process leading to the Commission vote and subsequent implications at global, national and patient/clinician levels. Narrative account of the four-year proceedings; review of the practical implications of both rejected and accepted recommendations.

Findings – The process was historically unprecedented, of political relevance to both medical Cannabis and evidence-based scheduling generally. Procedural barriers hampered the appropriate involvement of civil society stakeholders. The landscape resulting from accepted and rejected recommendations allow countries to continue creating decentralised, non-uniform systems for access to and availability of ‘‘cannabis’’ and ‘‘cannabis resin’’ for medical purposes.

Originality/value – Perspective of accredited observers; highlight of institutional issues and the lay of the land; contrast of stakeholders’ interpretations and engagement.

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Reading Room: Eric Drummond and his Legacies

Abstract

This is a review of the book: David Macfadyen, Michael D V Davies, Marilyn Norah Carr, John Burley, “Eric Drummond and his Legacies: The League of Nations and the Beginnings of Global Governance” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

The review, by Professor James Cotton, is published in Australian Outlook in the 'Reading Room' section, which provides online Book Reviews from the Australian Journal of International Affairs.

The Institution of International Order: From the League of Nations to the United Nations

Abstract

This volume delivers a history of internationalism at the League of Nations and the United Nations (UN), with a focus on the period from the 1920s to the 1970s, when the nation-state ascended to global hegemony as a political formation. Combining global, regional and local scaes of analysis, the essays presented here provide an interpretation of the two institutions — and their complex interrelationship — that is planetary in scale but also pioneeringly multi-local. Our central argument is that although the League and the UN shaped internationalism from the centre, they were themselves moulded just as powerfully by internationalisms that welled up globally, far beyond Geneva and New York City. The contributions are organised into three broad thematic sections, the first focused on the production of norms, the second on the development of expertise and the third on the global re-ordering of empire. By showing how the ruptures and continuities between the two international organisations have shaped the content and format of what we now refer to as ‘global governance’, the collection determinedly sets the Cold War and the emergence of the Third World into a single analytical frame alongside the crisis of empire after World War One and the geopolitics of the Great Depression. Each of these essays reveals how the League of Nations and the United Nations provided a global platform for formalising and proliferating political ideas and how the two institutions generated new spectrums of negotiation and dissidence and re-codified norms. As an ensemble, the book shows how the League of Nations and the United Nations constructed and progressively re-fashioned the basic building blocks of international society right across the twentieth century. Developing the new international history’s view of the League and UN as dynamic, complex forces, the book demonstrates that both organisations should be understood to have played an active role, not just in mediating a world of empires and then one of nation-states, but in forging the many principles and tenets by which international society is structured.

Challenges Confronting Whistleblowing and the International Civil Servant

Abstract

More than 800 international governmental organizations employ thousands of civil servants. Whistleblowers in them confront problems that are both common and uncommon compared with their nation-state counterparts. Drawing upon the relevant literature, as well as stakeholder interview data, a research framework is developed identifying whistle-blower challenges. These dilemmas focus on loyalty, impartiality, and immunity, as well as the desire to hold organizations accountable in a governance system lacking in sufficient checks and balances. In addition, significant hurdles confronting whistleblowers include definitions and policies, retaliation and restitution concerns, visa and short-contract constraints, and a resource gap along with judicial composition issues. Future research is needed because international public servants play a significant role in ensuring a transparent and accountable global system.