The genesis of international law and the Jews

The Jewish question occupied a notable place in the emergence of modern international law in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, the great powers made the recognition of certain Balkan states conditional upon the granting of civil equality to their minorities, including Jews, though these clauses were often poorly enforced. After the First World War, the minority treaties placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations sought to protect the rights of national and religious minorities in Central and Eastern Europe. Jewish jurists and organizations played an active role in defending these mechanisms. Imperfect and ultimately overwhelmed by the rise of nationalisms, these arrangements nonetheless prefigured the development, after 1945, of international human rights law.

Sources & resources

• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan
• Jewish Virtual Library ↗