NEWS

2020.02.29

The 13th AJI Frontier Seminar on " Making Global Governing Norms: The League of Nations, INGOs, and Experts across Empires in Asia”

On February 21, 2020, the 15th AJI Frontier Seminar was held. Dr. Tomoko Akami, who teaches history at the College of Asia and the Pacific at Australian National University, while she was a visiting researcher at Ritsumeikan Asia-Japan Research Organization, gave a presentation on " Making Global Governing Norms: The League of Nations, INGOs, and Experts across Empires in Asia".

Dr. Akami began her talk in the 19th century, when the increasing flow of people, goods, and money across borders, faster interactions, and technological advances led to the establishment of the League of Nations and a growing number of International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) to maintain security, organize conferences to share scientific expertise, standardize international in postal services and telecommunications, and control epidemics. She then introduced the political and ideological complexities in Asia, where the League's multilateral actions were based on imperial/colonial units and INGOs based on these units, not on the basis of nation-states as we may imagine by projecting our image of an "international society" today, and the wartime and post-war impact of inter-colonial cooperation among public health experts in colonial Asia. Dr. Akami's talk was followed by a stimulating Q&A session, which raised an interesting discussion on the importance and effectiveness of such organizations as the UN, the WHO, and the IMF in the present and the future.

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Dr. Akami during her presentation