Thomas Gidney – who is due to join the GLO team this summer– has published his first book, An International Anomaly: Colonial Accession to the League of Nations with Cambridge University Press. The book questions the fundamental relationship between membership in an international organisation and state sovereignty by highlighting the membership of several British colonies at the League of Nations, with a particular focus on India, Ireland, and Egypt. This study also examines why this was a particularly British phenomenon that was not replicated by other imperial states at the League, and goes beyond the assumption of simply trying to vote stuff the League Assembly. Finally, the book reveals how some of these norms, rather than being relegated to the imperial era of history, were replicated and continued into our present set of international institutions at the United Nations.
The book is available in Open Access via this link. On 21 May, the Geneva Graduate Institute is running a launch event; details are available here.