<P> The American President Woodrow Wilson instructed Edward M. House to draft a US plan which reflected Wilson's own idealistic views (first articulated in the Fourteen Points of January 1918), as well as the work of the Phillimore Commission . The outcome of House's work, and Wilson's own first draft, proposed the termination of "unethical" state behaviour, including forms of espionage and dishonesty . Methods of compulsion against recalcitrant states would include severe measures, such as "blockading and closing the frontiers of that power to commerce or intercourse with any part of the world and to use any force that may be necessary ..." </P> <P> The two principal drafters and architects of the covenant of the League of Nations were Lord Robert Cecil (a British diplomat), and Jan Smuts (a South African statesman). Smuts' proposals included the creation of a Council of the great powers as permanent members and a non-permanent selection of the minor states . He also proposed the creation of a Mandate system for captured colonies of the Central Powers during the war . Cecil focused on the administrative side, and proposed annual Council meetings and quadrennial meetings for the Assembly of all members . He also argued for a large and permanent secretariat to carry out the League's administrative duties . </P> <P> At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Wilson, Cecil, and Smuts all put forward their draft proposals . After lengthy negotiations between the delegates, the Hurst - Miller draft was finally produced as a basis for the Covenant . After more negotiation and compromise, the delegates finally approved of the proposal to create the League of Nations (French: Société des Nations, German: Völkerbund) on 25 January 1919 . The final Covenant of the League of Nations was drafted by a special commission, and the League was established by Part I of the Treaty of Versailles . On 28 June 1919, 44 states signed the Covenant, including 31 states which had taken part in the war on the side of the Triple Entente or joined it during the conflict . </P> <P> French women's rights advocates invited international feminists to participate in a parallel conference to the Paris Conference in hopes that they could gain permission to participate in the official conference . The Inter-Allied Women's Conference asked to be allowed to submit suggestions to the peace negotiations and commissions and were granted the right to sit on commissions dealing specifically with women and children . Though they asked for enfranchisement and full legal protection under the law equal with men, those rights were ignored . Women won the right to serve in all capacities, including as staff or delegates in the League of Nations organization . They also won a declaration that member nations should prevent trafficking of women and children and should equally support humane conditions for children, women and men labourers . At the Zürich Peace Conference held between 17 - 19 May, 1919, the women of the WILPF condemned the terms of the Treaty of Versailles for both is punitive measures, as well as its failure to provide for condemnation of violence and exclusion of women from civil and political participation . Upon reading the Rules of Procedure for the League of Nations, Catherine Marshall, an English suffragist, discovered that the guidelines were completely undemocratic and they were modified based on her suggestion . </P>

When did league of nations become united nations