Victims of War must be loyal to deserve protection: International law and national legislation on enemy aliens 1907-1918

In international law the internment of civilians has only been regulated in writing in the context of the 4th Geneva Convention of 1949. Nevertheless this did not mean that civilians were not protected by at least some rules of customary international law before that date and especially in World War I. Furthermore specialists of international law expected states – at least those considered to be part of the community of civilized nations – to continue to treat all men equal before the law even in wartime. As research already conducted (Bird, Panayi, Fischer) has shown, this was not the case during World War I. Based on these findings the presentation proposed here wants to look into the development of international law and into some national preparations for treating so called “enemy aliens” in the period before 1914 (Austria-Hungary, Australia, United Kingdom), in order to see to what extent principles of international law protecting civilians from the consequences of war can be detected in the pre-war preparations. As far as can be judged so far the issue of loyalty was central in this context. Looking at the war itself, the presentation proposed here will try to look at how far the principles of international law alluded to above continued to influence the policies on “enemy aliens” in the countries mentioned and to see, how the International Committee of the Red Cross tried to use them to legitimize and expand its protective policies in regard to civilians interned in belligerent as well as neutral countries throughout the war.

«The Broken Years»: War Crimes and the laws of war under the impact of the First World War

When the First World War began, the international co-operation of legal academics, which had been a characteristic of the late 19th and early 20th century came to a halt. In the context of the atrocities in Belgium as well as Serbia academics on both sides became involved in the propaganda campaigns of the belligerents on both sides. Not many of them were able to divest themselves. The presentation will claim that as a consequence the time between the First World War and the beginning of the Second can be characterized as «Broken Years» not only in regard to war veterans (Gammage 1974), but also in regard to the international academic discourse on issues of war crimes and the laws of war. This shall be substantiated by a look at academic activities in the interwar period within the International Law Association, the Institut de Droit International, the Interparliamentary Union, the Association Internationale de Droit Pénal and the Internationale Kriminalistische Vereinigung.

Subnational Patterns of Democracy in Austria, Germany and Switzerland

This article investigates the main political institutions in the sub-national democracies of Austria, Germany and Switzerland. It applies Lijphart’s approach to these German-speaking countries in Western Europe and expands it – following recent advances – by direct democracy. The main finding of the sub-national analysis is that, similar to Lijphart, two dimensions of democracy can be distinguished. While the first can be considered as the ‘consensual dimension’ of democracy, the second represents the ‘rules of the game’. Moreover, and in contrast to analyses at the national level, direct democracy does not constitute a dimension on its own, but forms an important element of consensus decision-making in the sub-national units at hand. Finally, based on cluster analysis three homogenous national clusters were found, but also one cluster with sub-national democracies from Germany and Austria that are more similar to one another than to other Länder within their respective federal states.

Weather and War – Economic and social vulnerability in Switzerland at the end of the First World War

Neutral Switzerland – not embedded in the fighting forces – yet was involved in the Great War mainly in economical terms. Since Switzerland is a landlocked country especially agriculture became an important topic of war economy in regard to food security. Until 1916 national food supply was limited but could be maintained through barter trade. In 1916 a crisis on both supply and production level occurred and led to a decline in food availability and to immense price risings causing social turmoil. This paper aims to outline the factors of vulnerability in respect of food in Switzerland during the First World War and further it will show different coping strategies that were undertaken during that time. The paper takes the work of Mario Aeby and Christian Pfister (University of Bern) into consideration that pointed out to weather anomalies during the years 1916 and 1917 aggravating the already tense food situation. Arguing for an overlap of supply and production crisis the paper focuses on agricultural and economic history including environmental impacts. Further the paper addresses the question of what makes a food system resilient to such unforeseen impacts.

“Delendum est Imperium Ottomanorum“: War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity and the End of the Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire’s status as a full member of the international community of civilized states, which was bound by the rules of international law, had been challenged again and again during the formative period of the international law in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. When the First World War began, it was the first global military conflict, in which these rules of international law were put to the test. In the case of the Ottoman Empire quite a few questions were not yet settled, not least because the country was still bound by unequal treaties and because it had never ratified the renewed Hague Rules of Land Warfare of 1907, which it had only signed under reservations. Against this background the contribution will therefore focus on the debate amongst legal scholars on violations of the laws of war (and humanity) in regard to the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.