The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Interwar Origins of Universal Humanitarian Rights, 1918–39

 

The ICRC and the Interwar Origins of Universal Humanitarian Rights, 1918-1939

This paper examines the postwar activities of the International Committee of the Red Cross in order to analyze the changing relationship between transnational charity and international rights during the interwar period. It argues that following the First World War soldiers’ rights to governmental assistance became the basis for a conceptual and practical extension of humanitarian rights to other, civilian, “victims of war.” While most humanitarian activities in 1918 were widely understood to be the domain of private charity, the Geneva and Hague Conventions granted soldiers a unique right to governmental assistance as a result of their sacrifice for the nation-state.  In the aftermath of the First World War, the International Committee of the Red Cross sought to extend soldiers’ humanitarian rights to other victims of war—civilian detainees, political prisoners, and refugees. Partnering with the League of Nations, various national Red Cross societies, and other charitable organizations, the ICRC spearheaded a series of relief activities financed through intergovernmental funds. They also argued in favor of legal codifications of war victims’ humanitarian rights, which eventually resulted in the strengthening of rights for prisoners of war in 1929, the first codification of rights for refugees in 1933, and a planned code of rights for civilian war victims in 1939. This paper therefore highlights a two-fold legacy of the First World War on modern humanitarian practice and international law. On the one hand, the scope and variety of victims affected by the war resulted in a transformation in thinking about humanitarian relief, away from private charity and towards international rights. On the other hand, the concept of “war victim” had its own conceptual limits that prevented victims of other forms of violent persecution from claiming international rights to humanitarian assistance during the interwar years.