Slavery and the League of Nations: Ethiopia as a Civilised Nation

Abstract

In 1949, the United Nations International Law Commission quietly decided to “refrain from using the e�pression ‘civilized countries’”1 in its deliberations. An era had apparently died away, only to be resurrected as part of the discourse of the post-September 11, 2001, United States’ “War on Terror”. Despite the resurgence of rhetorical use of “civilisation”, the notion of “civilised nation” never truly left the stage of international relations, as it remains on the books today, a part of international law. Article 38(1) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice mandates that the International Court apply international law from three sources, not only treaty and customary law, but also: “(c) the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations”. This provision is a much needed window onto a bygone era, as some have said an embarrassing reminder that international law acted as an instrument of imperial design. Much needed, as at the time such a designation as “civilised nations” would have appeared neutral and benign. This begs the questions: Is international law, and does it remain, structurally biased in favour of the West and its informal empire, while couched in more benevolent, universal language of, say, human rights? This article considers an instance of the transition from the “law of Christian nations” and the “public law of Europe” of the nineteenth century to “international law” of the twentieth century wherein non-European States were allowed to join the international qua European system of international relations on the basis of a fluctuating rule of “civilisation” dictated by European colonial powers. The standard of civilisation which was applied in the Ethiopian conte�t, upon which its admission to the League of Nations was predicated and later used to justify Italian aggression, was the abolition of slavery and the slave trade on its territory. The Ethiopian e�perience is considered here as a vehicle to study the emergence of slavery as the “first” human right given voice internationally; the manner in which the League of Nations, having established the abolition of slavery and the slave trade as a criteria of “civilisation” moved to codify it;