PAST EFFORTS AT JO0INDER

As early as 1931, Aristide Briand, French Foreign Minister, proposed the formation of a European customs union.  In 1932, a convention held at Oslo, Norway, resulted in the establishment of a process for economic cooperation among Belgium, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries.

Meanwhile, in 1930, a Bank for International Settlements had been founded, to act as agent in the growing quantity of international financial transactions.  It continues to so function today.  Its headquarters are in Basel, Switzerland; and its activities are worldwide in nature and scope. 

These beginnings were interrupted by World War II.  But then, in 1944, as the end of hostilities began to appear on the horizon, forty four economists from the United States and Europe met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, and shaped the concepts behind the founding of the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (to be later known as the World Bank).  The official birth date for these economic bodies was the same as the date of ratification of the Bretton Woods Agreement (which restored the equivalent of the pre-1914 gold standard)  by representatives from twenty eight nations: December 27, 1945.  One of its earliest acts was the making of a $250 million reconstruction loan to the French government, in May of 1947.  The Bank was, in actuality, an instrument to promote global collective action in the interest of worldwide economic stability--much as the rationale behind the United Nations would be toward the promotion of global collective action in the interest of worldwide political stability.

At war's end, a plan was also conceived by General George Marshall of the U.S., for the rendering of economic assistance to all of the nations and people of Europe who had sustained physical and economic devastation as a result of the recent warfare.  This plan, which came to be known as the Marshall Plan, was assisted in its implementation by these aforesaid international institutions.  The basic overall goal was to build a postwar economy in Europe wherein, it was hoped, the harms and dangers of economic nationalism, trade restrictions, and currency instability would be forever banished.  The ideal was to restore the free flow of trade and currency stabilization which all of Europe was considered to have enjoyed prior to the start of the First World War in 1914.  It was anticipated that most, if not all, of the European nations involved would agree among themselves as to what was needed; and that assistance would then be extended in accordance therewith.  This ingenious plan was successful and effective, and later hailed as having had a"major impact on European economic recovery and expansion." (Peter Singer, One World).

The World Bank's intended function in connection with this is of particular note in regard to the concept of a unified world; for one of its roles was that of a "medium for international risk-sharing," to foster the making of loans for the purpose of reconstruction and development throughout the world following the devastating conflict that was World War II.  It did this by means of long-term advances to various governments; as well as via issuance of guarantees for loans made for that purpose by private banks.