The 1926 Slavery Convention and the 1933 Advisory Committee of Experts

Background

Slavery had existed since ancient times, and was embedded in some cultures. 

Slavery can take different forms in different places – direct ownership (‘chattel slavery’), but also serfdom, forced labour, debt slavery, prostitution, child servitude, and forced marriage. 

European countries controlled most of the world through their empires, which included many such places. 

European countries – especially Britain – were proud that they had abolished slavery and the slave trade, and did not want to be told that they were countenancing slavery. 

European countries – especially Britain – dominated the League of Nations. 

The Temporary Slave Commission (TSC)

The League of Nations was the first international body to address the issue of slavery when it conducted an investigation in 1922-23 which found extensive evidence of slavery. 

When the colonial powers refused to accept the report (because it contained evidence from independent, non-governmental, bodies), the League created the TSC in 1924.  It repeated the investigation, but only asked for information from member states. 

Even so, the TSC found that slavery existed in various parts of the British Empire, including a form of hereditary slavery in Bechuanaland called ‘bolata’, and in India & Burma.  In Sudan, where the British claimed they had issued a circular abolishing slavery, it soon became clear that the circular had only been sent to the British officials; the British claimed that any attempt to abolish slavery there would lead to unrest. 

In Ethiopia, which claimed to be phasing out slavery , it was found not only that were there as many as 2 million slaves, but that Ethiopian slave-traders were actively kidnapping people to sell to slave-owners in Sudan. 

Spain and Belgium admitted to slavery in their African colonies, but stated that it was mild.  The TSC found evidence of slavery and the slave trade in Portugal’s African possessions

All this notwithstanding, the TSC Report concluded that slavery was abolished in all Christian countries and their colonies, but that there was extensive slavery in the Arabian peninsula and China.  It was then disbanded. 

The 1926 Slavery Convention

In 1926, the League passed the Slavery Convention.  Article 1 defined slavery as the status of a person over whom “right of ownership” was exercised and Article 2 promised “to suppress the slave trade and to progressively bring about the complete elimination of slavery in all its forms”. 

Article 9 of the Convention, however, allowed signatories to exempt certain territories, and Britain invoked this exemption for Burma and British India where, it said, certain kinds of slavery were so embedded that it would be disruptive to try to stop it. 

The main problem with the Convention was that it had no powers of compulsion, and it left the ‘suppressing’ to the member states themselves.  The result was that a Committee of Experts in 1932 found that little progress had been made. 

This in turn led to the setting up in 1933 of a permanent Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery (ACE).  Yet again, however, it was advisory-only, could only gather information from government sources, and was dominated by George Maxwell, a former British colonial administrator.  ACE did begin to accept that different forms of slavery existed – for instance the Mui tsai (‘little sister’) system of ‘adoption’/child slavery in China – but it focussed on slave raids, accepted the lies member governments were telling it, and gave up altogether on slavery in the Arabian Peninsula. 

The Effectiveness of the League

In terms of actively ending slavery, therefore the League was a failure. 

HOWEVER, in terms of moral influence, it was certainly part of an international movement that slavery was wrong, and slavery and the slave trade seem to have declined.  Highlights included:

    •   Encouraged by the League Nepal (1926) and Burma (1928) abolished slavery. 

    •   In 1927 (after a slave revolt in 1926) the British oversaw the freeing of 200,000 slaves they had failed to notice in Sierra Leone. 

    •   In 1936, the King of Saudi Arabia ended the importation of new slaves, regulated the conditions of existing slaves, and allowed manumission – the freeing their slaves.