CONFERENCE: Genocide, Mass Violence & International Justice after 1919 (17-19 April 2020, Berlin)

(Source: Genocideandjusticeafter1919)

We learned of an international conference on genocide, mass violence and international justice after 1919 in Berlin.

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919. That summer marked the beginning of two contrasting historical developments. One movement that gathered momentum advocated for peaceful international solutions and justice and for the rescue of the victims, especially those of the Armenian Genocide and other mass atrocities. First steps of international justice were debated, the first High Commission for Refugees was created by the League of Nations. On the other hand, a contrasting moment set the ideological foundations of the worst atrocities the century was yet to experience.
 

In this regard, the conference sits at the intersection of two burgeoning fields of historical inquiry: the history of humanitarianism and international justice, on the one hand, and the history of political violence and radical political ideology in the interwar period, on the other. It aims to explore how these contrasting movements were affected by the atrocities of World War I and by the Treaties that ended the war (from Versailles to Lausanne), and what part they eventually played in political thinking in Europe.

Day One 17/4

18.30

Welcome Remarks

Nicolas Tavitian - AGBU Europe

18.45

Keynote

Rolf Hosfeld - Lepsiushaus Potsdam

"No peace to end all violence": Nationalism, Imperialism and Internationalism after 1919"

20.00

Dinner

Day Two 18/4

Panel 1: Atrocities Against Civilians and the Rise of Humanitarian Movements

Chair: Nicolas Tavitian (AGBU Europe)

9.00 - 10.30

Melanie Tanielian (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor): Violence, Aid and Non-State Actors: Humanitarian Intervention in Nineteenth-Century Anatolia

Charlie Laderman (King's College London): The Anglo-American Struggle to Save the Armenians and Remake Global Order

10.30 - 11.00

Coffee break

11.00 - 12.30

Hilmar Kaiser (Yerevan State University): The Armenian Origins of the Near East Relief

Roy Knocke (Lepsiushaus Potsdam): Fridtjof Nansen: The Plight of Statelessness as an International Challenge

12.30 - 13.30

Lunch break

Panel 2: Post-Versailles Europe

Chair: Rolf Hosfeld (Lepsiushaus Potsdam)

13.30 - 15.00

Hans-Lukas Kieser (University of Newcastle, Australia): Mass Violence - the Elephant in the Room at the Conference of Lausanne

Momme Schwarz (Simon Dubnow Institute, Leipzig): Jewish Minority Protection during the Interwar Period - The Comité des délégations juives and the Schwarzbard Trial

15.00 - 15.30

Coffee break

15.30 - 17.00

Chalak Kaveh (Volda University College): The Apex of European Traditional «Gypsy policy» in the Interwar Period – A History of Policy Radicalization

Stefan Ihrig (University of Haifa): Learning from the Turks - Interwar Germany, the Nazis and the Quest for Violent Solutions

17.00 - 20.00

Visit of the exhibition "Johannes Lepsius and the Armenian Genocide" at the Lepsiushaus in Potsdam

Day Three 19/4

Panel 3: The Origins of International Justice

Chair: Ronald G. Suny (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)

9.30 - 11.00

Gurgen Petrossian (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg): The Impact of the Istanbul Experience on International Criminal Justice

Hülya Adak (Sabanci University/Free University of Berlin): Andrei N. Mandelstam and the History of Human Rights between the World Wars

11.00 - 11.30

Coffee break

11.30 - 12.30

Edita Gzoyan (Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, Yerevan):

Violence against Women and Children

in the Context of the Development

of International Law

12.30 - 13.30

Lunch break

Panel 4: Remembrance and Transnational Justice in the 20th & 21st Century

Chair: Roy Knocke (Lepsiushaus Potsdam)

13.30 - 15.30

Fatma Müge Göçek (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor): The Complexity

of Denialism in Turkey during the Interwar Period

Gerd Hankel (Hamburg Foundation for the Promotion of Science and Culture, HSFWK): The Relationship between International Criminal Justice and Remembrance

Michael B. Elm (Tel Aviv University/Free University of Berlin): Remembering the Great War in the Middle East. Constructing Cultural Trauma in Aljazeera (English) Documentaries

15.30 - 16.00

Coffee break

Concluding Panel

16.00 - 17.30

Rolf Hosfeld (Lepsiushaus Potsdam), Ronald G. Suny (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) and other conference participants

More info here