Communal conflict as a challenge to international organization: the case of former Yugoslavia

Abstract

Towards the end of the First World War, when allied leaders were considering the future structure of what was to become the League of Nations, Jan Christian Smuts of South Africa wrote:

The animosities and rivalries among the independent Balkan States in the past, which kept that pot boiling, and occasionally boiling over, will serve to remind us that there is the risk of a similar state of affairs on a much larger scale in the New Europe, covered as it will be with small independent States. In the past the Empires kept the peace among the rival nationalities; the League will have to keep the peace among the new States formed from these nationalities. This will impose a task of constant and vigilant supervision on it.