In Conjunction with the Eighth International Seminar on Decolonization,

A public lecture by 

Elizabeth Borgwardt of Washington University in St. Louis:

“Present at the Creation?” Human Rights, NGOs, and the Trusteeship Debate at the 1945 UN San Francisco Conference

Tuesday, July 16, 2013 at 4 p.m. in Room LJ119, Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

This talk is the story of how “human rights” ideas and institutions found their way into the 1945 United Nations Charter, after having having been left out of earlier drafts of that document. Accordingly, this research analyses the role of “modern” public opinion sampling, the carefully cultivated role of non-governmental organizations, as well as the role of unintended consequences for U.S. diplomacy around issues of race, decolonization, and trusteeship. This story also addresses constraints and contradictions within the Charter itself around protecting domestic jurisdiction and minimizing the role of “smaller” countries.

Elizabeth Borgwardt specializes in the history of international law with a focus on human rights ideas and institutions. As Associate Professor of History at Washington University in St. Louis, she also holds a courtesy appointment in Law. She recently served as the Richard and Ann Pozen Visiting Professor of Human Rights at the University of Chicago. Her most recent book, A New Deal for the World: America’s Vision for Human Rights, was published by the Belknap imprint of Harvard University Press in 2005 and is in its fourth printing. A New Deal for the World garnered the Merle Curti book award from the Organization of American Historians as the best book of its year in the history of ideas. It was also recognized with an award for the Best First Book in U.S. Foreign Relations and the History Honor Society’s award for the Best First Book on any history topic. Borgwardt has held fel lowships with Harvard, Stanford, the University of California-Berkeley, New York University, and the Holocaust Memorial Museum Archive, as well as a Fulbright with the University of Heidelberg, where she remains a permanent faculty affiliate. Her current project on crimes against humanity in history, law, and politics is under contract with Alfred A. Knopf.

The  National History Center’s Eighth International Seminar on Decolonization convened  July 7, 2013, bringing a new cohort of scholars  at the beginning of their careers to Washington, DC for four weeks of research, discussion, and writing on this emerging topic. Hosted by the John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress, the seminar is generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

It again is directed by Wm. Roger Louis of the University of Texas at Austin, Founding Director of the National History Center of the American Historical Association. Returning faculty members are Pillarisetti Sudhir, former editor of the AHA’s magazine, Perspectives on History, and Perspectives Online; Dane Kennedy of George Washington University; Philippa Levine of the University of Texas at Austin; and Jason Parker of Texas A&M University. Lori Watt, an alumna of the Third Seminar, will join the faculty for the summer of 2013.

The participants and the projects they will pursue during the seminar include:

John Aerni-Flessner, SUNY Cortland, Cortland, NY:  “Politicians, Youth and Peace Corps Volunteers: Re-imagining Nationalism through the Rhetoric of Development in Late 1960’s Lesotho”;

Marc Andre, Paris-Sorbonne, Paris, France:  “Lyons and North Africa, 1947-1974”;

Isabel de Souza Lima Junqueira Barreto, University Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: “Between Portugal, Angola and Brazil: Portuguese Immigration to Brazil 1974-77”;

Ellen Boucher, Amherst College, Amherst, MA: “Decolonization and the Transatlantic Politics of Disaster Preparedness, 1945-1960”

Nicole Bourbonnais, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA: “Decolonization, Population and the Cold War: The American Government and Family Planning in the West Indies, 1950-1970”;

Leena Dallasheh, Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University, New York, NY:  “Contested Citizenship: Nazareth in the Transition from the Mandate to Israel”;

Andrew Dilley, Department of History, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK: “Rethinking the Business of Decolonization: The Decline, Revival and Fall of the Federation of Commonwealth Chambers of Commerce, 1945-75”;

Charlie Laderman, Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK: “Sharing the Burden: The Armenian Question and the Search for a New World Order, 1894-1923”;

Jose Pedro Monteiro, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal: “Native Labor and Decolonization: Portugal and the United States of America”;

Jessica Pearson-Patel, New York University, New York, NY: “Anti-Colonialism at the United Nations: State Diplomacy, International Public Opinion, and the End of the Colonial Era in Sub-Saharan Africa”;

Juan Romero, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY: “Decolonization in Reverse: The Iranian Oil Crisis 1951-1953”;

Devika Sethi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India: “Threatening Print: Press Censorship in India and the United States during and after the Second World War”;

Joanna Tague, Denison University, Granville, OH: “The Rise of International Humanitarianism and the Fall of Empire: Organizations that Assisted Luso-African Refugees in the 1960s and 1970s”;

Birte Timm, Sir Arthur Lewis Institute for Social and Economic Studies at the University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica: “From Colony to Nationhood and Beyond: The Creation of a Transnational Jamaican Identity in the Diaspora”; and

Annalisa Urbano, Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK: “Italian Somalia and Decolonization.”

Three public lectures are part of the seminar. On Tuesday, July 16, Elizabeth Borgwardt of Washington University in St. Louis spoke on “Present at the Creation? Human Rights, NGOs, and the Trusteeship Debate at the 1945 UN San Francisco Conference.” On Tuesday, July 23, American Historical Association President Kenneth Pomeranz of the University of Chicago will discuss “Resisting Imperialism, Resisting Decolonization: Making ‘China’ from the Ruins of the Qing, 1912-1949.” And on Tuesday, July 30, seminar director Wm. Roger Louis will present “Another Dimension of Empire: The History of the Oxford University Press.” All three lectures are at 4:00 p.m. in Room LJ 119 of the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St., S.E., Washington, D.C. All are welcome and no tickets are needed.