Background to the League > League from year to year > 1936

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There was great difference of opinion as to whether the
method of election to offices connected with the Assembly
would be improved by creating, as proposed by Norway,
a committee to nominate candidates for these offices.
Ultimately, it was decided to adopt experimentally for three
years a system by which a committee appointed at the
commencement of each session on the proposal of the
provisional President will put forward names for all functions
carrying with them a seat on the General Committee, but the
Assembly and its committees will remain free to vote for
other persons than those so nominated. Under the
Norwegian proposal, the committee would have consisted
of representatives of States selected at the end of the preceding
session.
The rule permitting the Finance Committee to be convened
before the opening of the Assembly’s session was continued
in force for the year 1937.
II. — Composition of the Council.
At the commencement of 1936, the Council consisted of
four permanent members : the United Kingdom, France,
Italy and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and ten
non-permanent members. Of the non-permanent members,
two (Poland and Spain) had been represented continuously
on the Council since 1926 and 1928 respectively, in virtue of
having been from time to time declared re-eligible by the
Assembly. Seven of the other non-permanent members
belonged to groups of States : the States of Latin America
(three members), the Little Entente (one member), the group
of ex-neutrals (one member), the British Dominions (one
member) and the Asiatic States (one member), to which it had
become the practice to give representation on the Council,
while the eighth occupied a seat created in 1933 for three
years only as a provisional solution for the claim to
representation on the Council of States not belonging to
any of the groups. When this last seat was created, it was
decided that, before the end of the period for which it was