The International Bureaux and Intellectual Cooperation Section
Résumé
The International Bureaux and Intellectual Cooperation Section is not central in the overall activity of the League of Nations Secretariat. But despite its relatively small size, it occupies an important symbolic place for the League, for two reasons: First, it is the explicit connection with the internationalist spirit that pre-existed the institution, since it is supposed to be the link with all the international organizations created before the First World War. This "Belle Epoque" moment of international congresses and their permanent offices, from the second half of the 19th century, is indeed what the League of Nations seeks to complement and coordinate, or even replace to some extent. The establishment of a multilateral system, of a centralized place where all political and technical questions are discussed, contrasts with the decentralization of all these offices previously in charge of technical cooperation in very specific fields. Secondly, this section is the place where the spiritual dimension of the League of Nations is expressed: "intellectual cooperation" is not only a scientific or technical project, it is also and above all an idealistic attempt to bring to life a "League of Minds" that creates the necessary conditions for peace in a world that is emerging from a destructive conflict.
The coordination of the international bureaux having quickly proved to be limited, the Section is best known for having hosted the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC), which owes its high visibility to the famous scientific personalities who compose it, such as Henri Bergson, Marie Sklodowska Curie, Albert Einstein, Jagadis Chandra Bose or Hendrik Lorentz. The Institute created in Paris to serve as its executive branch (IIIC) is often considered the ancestor of UNESCO.