Picking Battles

2019 ◽  
pp. 216-232
Author(s):  
Rotem Giladi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
International Society ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Genocide Convention ◽  
Mandate System

Race is one of the more ubiquitous, yet least explored, shifts in twentieth-century international law. From law that was founded in key areas and concepts on racial distinctions, international law quickly came to denounce various manifestations of race theories and racial discrimination. The establishment of the UN reflected a racialized understanding of the international society assumptions of the League of Nations mandate system. The 1948 Universal Declaration addressed entitlement to human rights without distinction of race, yet the Genocide Convention extended protection to racial (identity of) minority groups. In South Africa, race policies provided both the impetus and multiple occasions for formulating claims about a new, de-racialized international law from 1946 onwards. At these struggles against apartheid, binary political confrontations could take form as competing visions of international law, both old and new. This chapter charts the sites of contestation over apartheid and its effects on international law.

‘On the Safe and Right Lines’: The Lloyd George Government and the Origins of the League of Nations, 1916–1918

1989 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Yearwood
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Society ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Total War ◽  
Peace And Justice ◽  
Post War ◽  
Durable Peace

The success of wartime governments in the twentieth century is determined not just by their effectiveness in waging war, but also by their ability to plan for peace. Mobilizing the population for total war and winning the benevolent neutrality or active support of major uncommitted powers require the projection of a vision of a better, peaceful world which will be the necessary consequence of victory. The reordering of international society is therefore proclaimed as a war aim of each belligerent. By December 1916, when Lloyd George displaced Asquith, the desirability of establishing a league of nations was already a matter of serious popular and diplomatic discussion. The new administration almost immediately had to state its attitude on questions of post-war international organization. In launching his peace initiative President Wilson called for the establishment after the war of a ‘league of nations to insure peace and justice’. The joint reply of the Entente powers endorsed the setting up of such a body. In a separate commentary, which was given wide publicity in America, the foreign secretary, A. J. Balfour, explained that, as a condition of durable peace, ‘behind international law, and behind all treaty arrangements for preventing or limiting hostilities, some form of international sanction should be devised which would give pause to the hardiest aggressor’.

scholarly journals Judicial Enforcement of Socioeconomic Rights: A Comparison between Transformative Projects in India and South Africa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasha G. Menell
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
International Law ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Socioeconomic Rights ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
Article 5

Cornell International Law Journal: Vol. 49 : No. 3 , Article 5.Constitutionally enshrined socioeconomic rights are a topic of enduring controversy. Societies overcoming exploitive regimes in the twentieth century have experienced popular demand for rapid economic and social transformation. Even before the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, emerging constitutional democracies debated the transformative potential of enforceable socioeconomic rights.Opponents of constitutionalizing socioeconomic rights have not disputed the need for transformation in such societies, but argue that such rights are non-justiciable because they present pressing questions of social policy best left to the democratically accountable actors in government. A related objection proposes that judicial enforcement of socioeconomic rights is dangerous to a system of separation of powers.

Forging a British World of Trade

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Thackeray
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Collaboration ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Business Leaders ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
Historical Role ◽  
The Eu

Brexit is likely to lead to the largest shift in Britain’s economic orientation in living memory. Some have argued that leaving the EU will enable Britain to revive markets in Commonwealth countries with which it has long-standing historical ties. Their opponents argue that such claims are based on forms of imperial nostalgia which ignore the often uncomfortable historical trade relations between Britain and these countries, as well as the UK’s historical role as a global, rather than chiefly imperial, economy. This book explores how efforts to promote a ‘British World’ system, centred on promoting trade between Britain and the Dominions, grew and declined in influence between the 1880s and 1970s. At the beginning of the twentieth century many people from London, to Sydney, Auckland, and Toronto considered themselves to belong to culturally British nations. British politicians and business leaders invested significant resources in promoting trade with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa out of a perception that these were great markets of the future. However, ideas about promoting trade between ‘British’ peoples were racially exclusive. From the 1920s onwards colonized and decolonizing populations questioned and challenged the bases of British World networks, making use of alternative forms of international collaboration promoted firstly by the League of Nations and then by the United Nations. Schemes for imperial collaboration amongst ethnically ‘British’ peoples were hollowed out by the actions of a variety of political and business leaders across Asia and Africa who reshaped the functions and identity of the Commonwealth.

The Creative Advance Must Be Defended: Miscegenation, Metaphysics, and Race War in Jan Smuts’s Vision of the League of Nations

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
JACOB KRIPP
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
International Order ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Global Peace ◽  
Mandate System ◽  
Race War ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Indirect Rule

This paper argues that the idea of global peace in early twentieth-century liberal international order was sutured together by the threat of race war. This understanding of racial peace was institutionalized in the League of Nations mandate system through its philosophical architect: Jan Smuts. I argue that the League figured in Smuts’s thought as the culmination of the creative advance of the universe: white internationalist unification and settler colonialism was the cosmological destiny of humanity that enabled a racial peace. In Smuts’s imaginary, the twin prospect of race war and miscegenation serves as the dark underside that both necessitates and threatens to undo this project. By reframing the problem of race war through his metaphysics, Smuts resolves the challenge posed by race war by institutionalizing indirect rule and segregation as a project of pacification that ensured that settlement and the creative advance of the cosmos could proceed.

scholarly journals YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT: WHAT ROLE CAN CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR) PLAY IN CURBING THIS SOCIAL ILL IN SWAZILAND (ESWATINI) AND SOUTH AFRICA?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simangele D. Mavundla
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
International Law ◽  
Youth Unemployment ◽  
Youth Employment ◽  
African Youth ◽  
Corporate Social

This profound academic opinion advocates for youth employment by clearly arguing that even though the African Youth Charter (AYC) is not binding on states in as much as on corporates/businesses, at international law these same corporates/businesses have a role to play in ensuring that youth unemployment is curbed through invoking Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It will be argued that CSR is no longer only associated with philanthropy, but it is now part and parcel of promoting and protecting human rights in communities where businesses operate, such that they cannot turn a blind eye to social ills such as youth unemployment.

Introduction

Veiled Power ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Doreen Lustig
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Private Business ◽  
Business Corporation ◽  
Conceptual Analogy ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Corporations have limited responsibilities in international law but enjoy far-reaching rights and privileges. International legal debates often conceive of this issue as a problem of business accountability for human rights violations. Conceptually, the issue of corporations in international law has focused on whether or not they are, or ought to be, recognized as ‘subjects’ of responsibility in international law and on the adequate conceptual analogy to the corporation. The introduction presents an alternative way of thinking about the role of international law and its relevance to the private business corporation. It traces the emergence of the contemporary legal architecture for corporations in international law and shows how modern international law constitutes a framework within which businesses and governments allocate resources and responsibilities—a framework that began to operate as early as the late-nineteenth century and continued throughout the twentieth century.

The British Mandate of Palestine and International Law

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Quigley
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Governance Structure ◽  
Technical Note ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Class A ◽  
Class B ◽  
Territorial Status ◽  
Mandate System ◽  
Prior Analysis

The establishment of Great Britain’s mandate over Palestine generated complex issues of international law. The mandate system was devised at the Paris Peace Conference with little prior analysis that might have given a clear answer as to its meaning. Complicating any analysis was the fact that three varieties of mandate were established, as Classes A, B, and C, with differing roles for the mandatory power. The Palestine Mandate was a Class A mandate, meaning a more robust status than that provided for Class B or C territories. Even within Class A differences existed. The three Class A mandates were Mesopotamia (Iraq), Syria, and Palestine. Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Syria each had a local administration with the mandatory power in an advisory capacity, whereas in Palestine the administration consisted of British personnel. The mandate system was criticized at the time as a continuation of colonial rule in a new guise. Feeding this criticism was the fact that in Great Britain’s governance structure, the Palestine Administration fell under the supervision of the Secretary for the Colonies. At the same time, Great Britain was subject to oversight by the League of Nations, through its Permanent Mandates Commission, and was enjoined to work toward relinquishing its role. Great Britain’s mandate over Palestine was further complicated by the fact that it involved a further injunction, namely, to foster a “Jewish national home” there. A notion of self-determination of peoples was becoming acknowledged at this period, and it was unclear how the concept of a “Jewish national home” might impact the population of Palestine, which was overwhelmingly Arab. Among international law writers of the 1920s, the mandate system generated a veritable cottage industry of scholarship, as they strained to fit it into existing categories of territorial status. Virtually every major international law analyst of the era expressed an opinion, with a number of them writing substantial volumes on the mandate system in general, or on Great Britain’s Palestine Mandate in particular. A technical note: The name “Henri Rolin” can be a source of confusion, as two Belgian scholars by this name wrote about the mandates in the interwar period. The dates of the elder Rolin are 1874–1946. The dates of the younger Rolin are 1891–1973. In the entries, each Rolin is identified by his dates.

The Juridical Expression of the Sacred Trust of Civilization (1971)

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. H. Alexandrowicz
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
South West Africa ◽  
Mandate System

This chapter examines the principle of the sacred trust of civilization in nineteenth-century international law. The establishment of the principle of the sacred trust of civilization is strictly connected with the transfer by the African communities of their territory, their sovereignty, and their destiny to the European Powers, which, through the relevant transactions, assumed the role of guardians of these communities. The chapter looks at the International Court of Justice’s decision in the second phase of the South West Africa Cases (Ethiopia v. South Africa and Liberia v. South Africa) on 18 July 1966. It also considers participation by the United States in the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885. Such an examination enables a critical discussion of the restrictive view expressed by the International Court of Justice to the effect that the mandate system is the sole juridical expression of the principle.

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