The Emerging International Legal Protection of Human Rights in the Interwar Period: the Life and Ideas of André Mandelstam. Part 1

Abstract

The contemporary academic literature on theory and history of international law in the Russian language hardly ever mentions the name of André Mandelstam. As for the doctrinal sources in English, French and other languages, the attention to the ideas of A. Mandelstam gradually returns to the sources focused on the early history of human rights protection. In the turbulent time of wars and revolutions, Mandelstam’s diplomatic and academic career stands out because of his consistent focus on the protection of human rights, and during his years in emigration — his attempts to universalise these ideas. It was André Mandelstam who prepared the first draft of the universal declaration of human rights, adopted by the International Law Institute. During his emigration years, A. Mandelstam gave lectures in the Hague Academy of International law, promoting humanitarian ideas and reflecting on the minority rights, refugees and statelessness issues as faced by and resulting from the transformation of Ottoman and Russian Empires. He conceptually developed the ideas of international protection of minorities and human rights in international law, all the while continuing to actively work towards their universalisation. Despite the advanced ideas for his time about the primacy of human rights over state sovereignty, Mandelstam was not free from the perception deeply rooted in the worldview of internationalists of his generation about the different levels of development and civilization of various peoples, who, in their opinion, needed protection from enlightened states. The authors of this article have explored the private background of André Mandelstam and microhistories connected to it, striving at the same time to draw the wider historic, political and social context. They examined André Mandelstam's ideas on the protection of minority and human rights as they developed in the interwar period in order to bring them back into contemporary theoretical and historical discourse.