Sub-Fonds - Several Sections, Political and Technical

The Political, Legal, Technical, etc. Sections used to work together in cooperation. Thus it was not easy to decide in what Section certain documents should be classified, even if, in principle, only one of these Sections was in charge of a specific affair and used to receive the "action copy" of letters or reports in order to take decisions or actions. This is the reason why the Several Sections, Political and Technical was set up by Y. Pérotin (in charge of the Archives of the League of Nations from 1966 to 1969) to collect all the files from the different political and technical Units of the Secretariat, that could not be assigned to one Section rather than another.

Some of the files of these several Sections also emanated from the "Central Section" created by J. Avenol and from offices or cabinets of the higher civil servants.

The "Several Sections, Political and Technical" reflects the preparation done by several sections for the work of the sessions of the Assembly and of the Council for helping them in the implementation of their decisions.

It concerned:

• questions processed by the Assembly, such as the organization of the League of Nations, the rules of procedure of the Assembly, admission of delegations of States to the League of Nations, representation of women in the Assembly or representation of voluntary associations, etc., or
• questions processed by the Council, such as the composition of the Council and correspondence with governments, or
• miscellaneous questions such as refugees, war disabled and pensioners, widows and orphans, protection of wild animals and birds, etc. as well as,
• more administrative or technical questions such as broadcasting of proceedings of the Assembly, publication of the Assembly agenda, languages used by Member States of the League of Nations, correspondence, petitions, claims etc.

The "Central Section" was created by J. Avenol in 1933 to assist the Secretary-General in coordinating the work of the Secretariat and more specifically, in preparing the work of the sessions of the Assembly and of the Council and in implementing their decisions.

This Section concerning several Sections of the Secretariat is very important and useful for all kind of researches and should be systematically consulted by everyone doing research on the League of Nations. Everyone should particularly have a look at all the files of Section 40 about general issues on the League of Nations.