国際連盟保健機関の創設

―目的及び組織構造を中心として―

抄録

International cooperation in the health field currently faces various problems such as the spread of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Such problems have a long history. During the interwar period, which is covered by this paper, the League of Nations (LN) was established to promote international cooperation and achieve international peace and security. International cooperation in the health field was one of the LN’s leading activities. It established the League of Nations Health Organization (LNHO), which played a central role in the LN’s activities in the health sector.
This paper analyzes the constituent instruments of the LNHO, such as its stipulated organizational objects, functions, and programs, and seeks to reveal the relationship between successful activities in the health field and the international regime. This paper also examines the characteristics of the LNHO and how these were formed and developed. A significant contribution of this paper is that it ascertains the process of the organizational formation of the LNHO from the perspective of international institutional factors, and brings out connections between progress in international cooperation in the field of health and that in international relations, in the interwar period.
The first section of the paper establishes the constituent instruments of the LNHO and clarifies the characteristics of its organizational structure. The second section reviews the organizations in the field of health before the Great War. It also examines when and how Articles 23(f) and 25 were incorporated into the Covenant of the League of Nations and the influence of the influenza pandemic of 1918–19 on this. The third section looks at the creation of the initial concept of the LNHO. The fourth section examines the problems associated with a change in the president of the United States from Wilson to Harding at the time the LNHO was in the process of becoming a permanent organ of the LN.
The paper concludes that even though the LNHO was a special agency of the LN, it had a unique structure that went beyond the framework of LN membership. This structure facilitated international cooperation in the health field. Compared to the political area of the LN’s work, where its purpose was to maintain peace, the promotion of international cooperation in health was easier because it was non-political. Therefore, the evolving international cooperation in the health field in the interwar period was due both to the nature of cooperation in the field and the LNHO’s structural framework that went beyond the membership of the LN. This paper emphasizes that the existence of such an international system benefited actors beyond those involved in international cooperation activities.