1945: Arab League Founded

On This Day in Politics: March 22, 1945

On March 22, 1945, representatives of Arab states signed the founding pact of the League of Arab States in Cairo. The organization, generally known as the Arab League, brought regional cooperation into a permanent institutional framework. Its founding group comprised Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Transjordan, and Yemen, although Yemen signed the pact later, on May 5. That distinction separates the organization’s founding date from the completion of every founding member’s signature. The agreement pursued closer relations among its members while expressly protecting their independence. It established a forum where governments could discuss shared interests without merging into a single state.

The pact followed several years of discussions about Arab cooperation during the Second World War. Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa al-Nahhas held talks with representatives of neighboring Arab countries during 1943 and early 1944. A conference in Alexandria in September and October 1944 then developed a protocol calling for a league, with committees to prepare its structure and consider economic, cultural, and social cooperation. The movement reflected aspirations for greater regional influence alongside efforts to end remaining foreign control. Different proposals for unity had circulated, but the settlement that emerged centered on cooperation among existing governments. Negotiation therefore concerned both common ambitions and the authority each state would retain.

The new council gave each member state one vote, regardless of the size of its delegation. The pact designated Cairo as the permanent headquarters and created a general secretariat. Cooperation was to cover political affairs as well as trade, transport, culture, social welfare, and health. Its voting rules also placed limits on collective authority: unanimous decisions bound all members, while majority decisions bound only those accepting them. Members undertook to respect one another’s systems of government. These provisions made sovereignty part of the organization’s operating structure. The League could provide coordination and a diplomatic meeting place, but its members had not created a government above their own.

The founding arrangements also addressed peoples and territories beyond the member governments. An annex provided for an Arab representative from Palestine to participate in the League’s work, while another encouraged cooperation with Arab countries outside the council. A contemporary American diplomatic memorandum described the organization as an important development in the Arab unity movement and noted efforts by its members to coordinate at the San Francisco conference establishing the United Nations. The League thus emerged during a broader reconstruction of international diplomacy at the end of the war. March 22 marks the creation of a continuing regional institution whose founding pact combined a desire for common action with firm safeguards for the independence of its member states.