The Practical Failures of the League of Nations’ Interwar Humanitarian Project for Armenian Genocide Survivors and the Beginnings of International Human Rights Talk

The Practical Failures of the League of Nations’ Interwar Humanitarian Project for Armenian Genocide Survivors and the Possible Origins of International Human Rights Talk

While the cause of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire had played an important role in shaping Western attitudes and ideas about humanitarian intervention and national self-determination, the collapse of efforts to create an Armenian state in the wake of genocide and WWI led the nascent League of Nations to elaborate efforts within the repertoire of humanitarianism to preserve the Armenians as a distinct community. The history of those efforts brings into relief evolving interwar thought and policies about refugees, human trafficking, and the place of international institutions in the protection of civilians.  The practical failures of the League’s projects provided a field in which “rights talk” could take place and the modern refugee régime emerge.  Critically, this paper contributes to an ongoing debate about the role of rights talk in the period prior to the founding of the United Nations and the elaboration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.