British Delegation Research Articles

Historicising Mauritian self-determination at the International Court of Justice

Between 2018 and 2019, the International Court of Justice considered whether the formation and current existence of British Indian Ocean Territory violated international law. This article reveals how three temporalities – decolonial nation-state, colonial and indigenous – shaped, and were shaped by, differing conceptions of Mauritian self-determination within the Case. In doing so, this study provides an account of previously unrecognised notions of self-determination that were formative of the recent Chagos Archipelago dispute. I argue that the British delegation recasts the meaning of Mauritian self-determination as an expression of intra-colonial rights, past and present. Furthermore, I contend that Chagossian responses to the Case advanced a notion of indigeneity as having multiple moments and sites of emergence – with corresponding rights claims that extricate self-determination from a singular period and space of injustice. These colonial and indigenous conceptions of self-determination are shown to challenge, yet ultimately become subordinated to, the familiar nation-state debates on complete/incomplete Mauritian decolonisation. A focus upon representations of time does more than uncover aspects of the recent Chagos Archipelago dispute, which were structured by novel attempts to conceptualise self-determination. This article holds wider significance for post-colonial IR. The competing registers of shaped time strove to reinforce or revise what counts as post-1960 norms of self-determination.

Austen Chamberlain and the Locarno Treaties revisited

ABSTRACT The approaching centenary of the Locarno conference in October 1925 provides a convenient reason to re-evaluate the significance of the treaties that emerged from it. Often styled as the ‘real’ peace settlement at the end of the First World War, the treaties of Locarno collectively represent one of the most important attempts to ensure lasting peace in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. Central to the treaties’ reputation as the ‘real’ peace settlement is their role in rehabilitating Germany’s Great Powers status after the humiliation suffered at the Paris Peace Conference six years earlier. The Locarno agreements have been seen as one of the rare highpoints in post-First World War Western European diplomacy. They were viewed by contemporaries as a real diplomatic breakthrough that would allow finally for the ghosts of the enmities that had caused the First World War to be laid to rest, although subsequent generations of scholars have been much more critical about what the agreements achieved in the long-term. This article focuses on the contribution made to the conference by the head of the British delegation, the Foreign Secretary, Sir Austen Chamberlain. It re-examines his diplomatic priorities, especially his reputation as a Francophile. Its central thesis is that Chamberlain himself can be seen to embody the essential reasons why the Locarno agreements were heralded as a success at the time of their conclusion, but less so with the perspective of hindsight. The treaties contained within them two opposing diplomatic forces. On the one hand, the remnants of the pre-war national state system, with its emphasis on diplomatic self-interest, secret, private negotiations, versus the so-called ‘new’ diplomacy: international, open, democratic and accountable. This rendered most of the European diplomatic problems in the post-First World War era intractable; indeed that they were incapable of resolution by anyone. Chamberlain’s entire engagement with the western European security question during the mid-1920s can be seen as evidence not only of those tensions but of the futility of trying to resolve them.

“How Ineffective is the Existing International Health Office”: Problems in the Creation of the Health Organization of the League of Nations

In this article, based on documents from the League of Nations archives, the author examines the history of the creation of the League of Nations Health Organisation after the First World War. The founders of the League failed to implement the Treaty of Versailles and create a single global organisation to fight epidemics and preserve public health. At the time of the creation of the Versailles world order, there were several centers around which a permanent international health organization could be formed. The Covenant of the League of Nations, which was part of the Treaty of Versailles, required stricter coordination of all international health institutions and their subordination to a single center in the League of Nations. The British delegation at the Paris Peace Conference took initiative in solving this problem. However, all attempts to create a health organization quickly ended in failure due to disagreements between the Allied Powers. The United States, guided by the interests of commerce and the preservation of influence, took the position of protecting the independence of the International Office of Public Hygiene in Paris. France also wanted to keep the prestigious international office in Paris. As a result, the Health Organization of the League of Nations experienced constant underfunding, as well as bureaucratic red tape in an environment where quick decisions had to be made in the field of medical research and disease control.

The British Program for the "Reconstruction in Europe" in 1922: Political and Diplomatic Aspects

The article examines the process of formation of the British program for the "reconstruction of Europe" and the diplomatic efforts of Prime Minister D. Lloyd George to promote it on the eve and during the Genoa Conference of 1922. The Conference was one of the key events of European diplomacy between the two world wars. In 1922, thirty four nations met to restore peace between victors and vanquished, reestablish ties between Soviet Russia and the West, and promote the economic reconstruction in Europe. The relevance of the problem under study is due to the controversial assessments of the Genoa Conference in modern foreign and domestic historiography. Considering the content of these discussions, the authors of the articles proceed from the fact that Lloyd George proposed to hold a major economic and political conference to re-energise the European economy and revive the flagging fortunes of his coalition government. He believed that if Russia was opened to world trade, this would enable Germany to prosper and pay reparations to Britain and France, who could then repay their American war debts. Germany's agreement with the new principles of relations with the winners would abate France’s security fears, thus contributing to the stabilization of the Versailles world order. However, the British program was not implemented, because Soviet Russia and Germany concluded the Treaty of Rapallo. Analyzing the reasons for the failure of D. Lloyd George, the authors come to the conclusion that they stem from the basic contradiction between the large-scale plan and the diplomatic miscalculations made by the British delegation on the eve and during the conference.

John Donne in the Hague and the Hague at the Globe: Performing Reformation England's Religio-Political Doctrine of Perseverance

This essay argues that the British delegation's distinctive approach to the Reformed doctrine of perseverance at the Synod of Dort provides necessary context for two international sermons delivered by John Donne in 1619. Donne's rhetoric in these sermons, in turn, is echoed by a striking dramatization of international “current events” performed in the same year by the King's Men at the Globe Theatre. Reading John Donne's sermons at Heidelberg and the Hague alongside John Fletcher and Philip Massinger's collaborative The Tragedy of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt, this essay demonstrates that James I's delegates at Dort, his European embassy's star preacher, and a popular London play present a richly nuanced yet harmonious public face on an international stage to an often contentious national conversation. King, church, and people speak together on the necessity of persevering in faith (within the established church), in fidelity to God-ordained civil government, and with loyalty to the European Protestant cause held in tension with a “Britain first” national exceptionalism.

Religious Life in the USSR and the Allied Policy of 1943: the Perspective of an American Assumptionist

The article considers one of the aspects of the transformation of the religious policy of the Soviet leaders during the Great Patriotic War. In 1941–1943 one of the main addressees of this policy were the allies of the USSR in the anti-Hitler coalition. The document on which this article is centred reflects the British view of the rapprochement between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Church of England in 1943. It is a report to the Vatican compiled by Fr Leopold Braun AA, Rector of the Catholic parish of St Louis in Moscow. The American priest describes the overall picture of religious and near-religious life in the country from the summer to the autumn of 1943; informs the Holy See of the circumstances of the 1943 Council of the Russian Orthodox Church and the election of Patriarch Sergius; details the visit to Moscow of Archbishop Cyril Garbett of York. Fr Braun emphasises the religious dimension of this visit. He claims that some members of the British diplomatic corps and journalists expected liturgical communion to be established between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Church of England. These assumptions were not confirmed by members of the British delegation, but reflected the sentiments of part of British society.

Lviv musical impressions on the pages of A. Bennett’s diary

Background. Objectives and methodology of the research. The article contains a commentary to the separate pages of A. Bennett’s diaries, in which the impressions of the famous English writer, playwright, actor and journalist from visiting the cities of Moscow, Orel and Lviv were recorded in May 1988. This trip took place at the invitation of the Writers’ Union of the USSR. As part of the British delegation, A. Bennett carried out a mission of “cultural diplomacy”, whose goal was to open the “Iron Curtain” between the West and the countries of Eastern Europe. The program of the visit of the foreign delegation is analyzed, in particular, visits to opera performances (at the Bolshoi Theater – “Werther” by J. Massenet, at the Lviv Opera and Ballet Theater – «The Ukrainian Cossack beyond the Danube» by S. Gulak-Artemovsky). The purpose of this article is to introduce into the scientific circulation the evidence that allows illuminating the events of the recent past through the prism of the perception of their immediate participants. Another task of this article is to determine the pragmatics of “hospitality” and its operatic component in the conditions of the Soviet system on a concrete example. In addition, the article establishes, with the help of diary notes, the specifics of the guests’ reaction to the realities of Ukrainian life during the “Perestroika” period and to the fact that opera represents power, which is essential for cultural diplomacy. The research is based on diary prose, which was originally prepared for publication in a literary journal. This determined the appropriate mode of expression and set the choice of illuminated objects. The descriptive-evaluative narrative appeals to real places and persons. So, the author tries to achieve the effect of documentary. At the same time, there is a noticeable tendency to create a slightly entertaining text that should interest the average reader and meet his expectations. Research results. This material made it possible to supplement with interesting facts the practice of cultural diplomacy that was established in the USSR, which was covered by the Western researchers, for example F. Barghoorn (1960), P. Hollander (1981), M. David-Fox (2011). In addition, the analysis of this evidence made it possible to introduce into scientific use not only the events, but also the attitude of foreign guests towards them. This is important for historiography and reconstruction of the recent past. The events, mentioned in the text of the evidence, acquire an outside view. The words of the “outsider” become comparative frame through which it is possible to comprehend what happened, freely from the obsessive rhetoric of the perestroika time. According to Bennett, in 1988 the protective function of the totalitarian system came into conflict with the new trend of the time. The imprint of stagnation and decline, even decomposition, but not the sense of purpose and optimism, which P. Hollander described as the “stigma of these countries”, also affected the “window” of Soviet reality, where obvious cracks of loud selfdisclosures appeared. The mandatory program of the visit included meeting with colleagues. With the help of diary, the specific reaction of the guests is set to the fact why an opera self-representation was so important for the «Soviet side». The pages of Bennett’s diaries showed attention to everyday details. The writer was able to create not an image of faceless mass, but the vivid portraits of his contemporaries and capture his experience of meeting a different reality. Conclusions. A. Bennett – a man and a writer – recreated his short stay in Lviv, capturing the theatrical nature of the life-giving performance that unfolded here in the tense collisions between official rhetoric and living reality. The opera itself was of little interest to A. Bennett, but he was well aware of the exceptional importance attached by the organizers of the trip to the fact of visiting the opera house. As an “object of showing” to foreigners, the opera served, first of all, as a proof of the “culture” of the country, a proof that the cultural heritage of the past is better preserved here. At the same time, in the system of “cultural diplomacy” the opera topos functioned as an aesthetic representation of power, the “higher truth” about it. Opera representation existed as a self-sufficient complete phenomenon, which testified to the presence of higher meanings in the real world.

Managing Disintegration: How the European Parliament Responded and Adapted to Brexit

Brexit makes both a direct and an indirect impact on the European Parliament (EP). The most direct consequence is the withdrawal of the 73-member strong UK contingent and the changing size of the political groups. Yet, the impact of Brexit is also felt in more oblique ways. Focussing on the role and influence of the EP in the EU–UK negotiations, and of the British delegation in the EP, this article shows that the process, and not just the outcome of Brexit, has significant organisational implications for the EP and its political groups. Moreover, it also showcases the importance of informal rules and norms of behaviour, which were affected by Brexit well ahead of any formal change to the UK status as a Member State. The EP and its leadership ensured the active involvement of the EP in the negotiating process—albeit in different ways for the withdrawal agreement and the future relationship—and sought to minimise the costs of Brexit, reducing the clout of British members particularly in the allocation of legislative reports.

«Наука не имеет Отечества: этот лозунг и верен и нет» (отклики иностранных ученых на 220-летний юбилей Академии наук СССР)

In this article, the responses of foreign scientists to the jubilee commemoration dedicated to the 220th anniversary of the USSR Academy of Sciences (June 15-30, 1945) are analyzed. The aim of this article is to clarify the trend of reformatting the communicative field of science in a unique historical period suffused with the pathos of the Victory, fresh memories of the joint struggle within the anti-Hitler coalition, hopes for building a better world. The source basis of the study is representative. It includes interviews of foreign guests published both in the Soviet Union and abroad, ego sources, reports, and questionnaires. Many of them were collected and preserved in the papers of the All-Union Committee for the 220th Anniversary of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (No. 519) and among the personal papers of Academician V.L. Komarov (No. 277). One of the reports of the British delegation is preserved among the personal papers of Sir Henry Dale in the Archives of the Royal Society. V.S. Gruzdinskaya, one of the authors of this article, and M. V. Kovalev co-published this document. The indicated subject is studied fragmentary in modern historiography, the exception is an article by N.A. Kuperstoch, “The image of science in the post-war world: the anniversary conference of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences in June 1945”, which analyzes the responses to the anniversary in the framework of one of the sessions. The anniversary is treated as a communicative platform. In the present article, it allows clarifying the ideas and concepts of national-state science and the ideas of academic internationalism, which involves the use of methods of social and intellectual history. In the space of the anniversary, the idea of a common world science was expressed clearly. Science is international by nature and cannot be confined within the borders of one country. Programs for the formation of a common communicative space were proposed. It was planned to organize an international scientific publishing house, an international abstract journal, an intensive exchange of scientists and students, holding of symposiums, conferences, seminars, and unification of the scientific language. The idea of institutionalizing the “unity of science” emerged. Joseph Needham, an English biochemist, put forward an initiative to create an International Service for Scientific Cooperation. He prepared a memorandum, “The Place of Science and International Scientific Cooperation in Post-war World Organisation”. The responses of the foreign participants of the commemoration show the image of Soviet science and some of its national features. One of them was called rootedness in popular culture, which reflected the scale of scientific achievements' popularization. The reverse side of popularization was the exaggeration of Russian scientists' achievements as a means of inflating national pride. Thus, one of the participants of the celebration, Sir Eric Ashby, captured the specifics of the opposition of Soviet science to the rest of the world - Soviet means excellent. This trend was clearly manifested somewhat later in other international and domestic political contexts.

Do History Lessons Ever Pay off? A Diplomat’s Memoir

Sir Rodric Braithwaite was educated at Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, from where he went to serve in HM Diplomatic Service, having worked in Jakarta, Moscow, Washington, Warsaw, Rome, and Brussels, where he was a member of the British delegation to the European Community. From 1988 to 1992, Sir Rodric served as HM Ambassador in the Soviet Union during the decisive years of the Perestroika and the first British ambassador in Russia. Subsequently, he was appointed foreign policy adviser to the Prime Minister in the second John Major ministry and chaired the UK Joint Intelligence Committee between 1992 and 1993. He was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in 1994. As a career diplomat, Sir Rodric gained decades of insight into the troubled relations between Russia and West, having taken part in numerous negotiations on arms control. His affinity with the decision-making circles in both Russia and Britain alongside with the mastery of the Russian language allow him to skillfully dissect the underlying causes of ups-and-downs in Moscow’s relationship with the West, employing the works of both English- and Russian-speaking analysts. Among his recent books are Across the Moscow River (2002), Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War (2006), Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979–1989 (2012), Armageddon and Paranoia: The Nuclear Confrontation (2017). In this essay, Sir Rodric reminisces of the years spent as a diplomat and provides his view on the usefulness and applicability of historical lessons while devising a foreign policy course.

“Wilsonianism” within the British Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference

“Wilsonianism” within the British Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference

Victorious Power and the Peoples’ Right to Self-Determination

Victorious Power and the Peoples’ Right to Self-Determination

Sir Halford Mackinder's Democratic Ideals and Reality: A Centennial Appreciation

Sir Halford Mackinder’s seminal contribution to classical geopolitics, Democratic Ideals and Reality: A Study in the Politics of Reconstruction, was published a century ago. The book was written to influence the British delegation to the peace conference that was beginning in Versailles. Scant evidence suggests that he succeeded in this aim. However, with the Second World War, and the United States’ participation in the conflict, Mackinder’s ideas found critical acclaim. This centennial appreciation contends that many of the concepts he coined have relevance for today. Crucially, he identified two enduring features of democratic regimes that both explain and warn. First, in times of peace and prosperity, democracies refuse to think strategically until compelled to do so. Second, political elites in these countries divorce their normative ideals for a rules-based international order from the existing and emerging geopolitical realities.

«DOBRUDJA QUESTION» IN FOREIGN POLICY OF ROMANIA AND POSITION OF THE GREAT BRITAIN EVE OF AND DURING A PERIOD WORK PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE (1918–1919)

In the presented article the author highlights the main direction of its foreign policy Romania on Southern Dobrudja lands at the end of the First World War and the period of the Paris Peace Conference (1918–1919 ). The article highlights the work and the struggle for peace with the Balkan states of Romania and Britain politicians, diplomats and civil society towards preserving peaceful relations in the period of operation of the Paris Peace Conference.The most radical departure from the principle of national self-determination which practiced Foreign-Office came in relation to Romania’s frontier with Bulgaria. The tasks are to characterize the content of the work of the Romanian diplomatic commission in the direction of the defending the rights to South Dobrudja and the determination of the position of Great Britain as for territorial independence of the region. The main thesis of the article is that after First World War Romania sought to large an alliance with t least on of the Great Powers in case of an attack on South Dobrudja, in this sense, Romania’s diplomatic success was only partial. The Romanian government realized that only the permission of the Great Powers, such as Great Britain, would strength its presence in the region.The Great Britain treated ambiguously towards such aspirations of Romania. For the first, Foreign Office was not forgotten for Bucharest the separate peace with the Central Powers in 1918. For the second, Britain diplomatic and military mission at Southern Dobrudja did not take the politics of the terror of Romanian in Bessarabia. The Great Britain provided a summary of the position in Southern Dobrudja: provisional British military occupation is the only possible solution for the moment, in spite of the unrest this causes to the Rumanian Government.From the first of the being in Paris, the Romanian diplomats were sounded actively the question how the Great Britain and France would see the future status of Southern Dobrudja. The Romanian demand for Southern Dobrudja was strongly citing national self-determination and protecting peace in Balkan. Most in the British delegation hoped that this could be agreed.However, the British and French refused absolutely to compel an ally to surrender territory to an enemy. The decision, British politics believed, lay with Romania: such readjustment could only be made after friendly conversations with the Rumanian Government. It is important that the Rumanian politics themselves should be a consenting party to the cession of Southern Dobrudja and that Romanians should not be left with the feeling that they have been robbed by their Allies to placate their enemies.In the Parice Peace Conference Foreign Office took the legalistic view that, because Southern Dobrudja was secured by Romania before the war, its future was beyond the remit of the Peace Conference. The Britain Commission stated in its projects that it was not authorized to recommend a modification of the frontier which would involve the cession to an enemy State of a territory forming de facto et de jure an integral part of an Allied State.The Romanians, angry about losing part of the Banat, never offered to give up Southern Dobrudja. The Americans pushed their view in the Council of Heads of Delegations between July and November, but the British were unyielding. The issue was not even mentioned in the Treaty of Neuilly with Bulgaria in November. Thus, in the words of a member of the Bulgarian Delegation, the settlement proclaimed the principle that no land can be claimed from the victors. It has been argued here that Bucharest gained territory not because of the wartime treaty that promised her so much, and not because of the dubious diplomatic skills of Romanian delegation, but because the Roma nians had a strong case and it was effectively presented by Romanophiles like Britain delegation. There was one other reason, however, that tended to shine its harsh light on every issue, the simple idea that these people are our friends and those are our enemies. This was stated most starkly and frequently by the French, but it was also evident in the British unwillingness to coerce the Romanians over Southern Dobrudja.The consequence of making a settlement which dealt severely with losers was that they became revisionist and eventually allied themselves with those who would undo the hated treaties. Romania remains much bigger than she was in 1918, but the settlement that created Greater Romania did not survive the vengeance of its enemies.

Seeking Moderation and Stability: Emotion, the British Delegation and the Polish Settlement at Paris, 1919

For a century, British policy towards Poland at the Paris Peace Conference has divided opinions. One common view among historians specializing in the topic is that British policy was not only unsupportive but ‘anti-Polish’. A minority takes the opposing view: British policy-makers may have differed with many of Poland’s claims to contested territories, but they were well-meaning and took Poland’s best interests to heart. At the core of the divergence are critical comments by many in the British delegation, notably Prime Minister David Lloyd George: that ‘Poles’ were emotional, ‘difficult’, and overreaching in their territorial claims. Such comments reveal that emotional content was integral to discussions of the Polish settlement. British delegates to the peace conference judged Poles and Poland in emotional terms and also expressed their feelings in connection with policy. Restoring the emotional content of Britain’s policy at the peace conference provides a new framework for understanding how intercultural contact at Paris shaped policy-makers’ discussions and contributes to recent explorations of the integral place of emotions in international history.

VI: PARLIAMENTARY MISSION TO AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND: 1944

In the spring of 1944 I was asked to join an all party Parliamentary Delegation organised by the Empire Parliamentary Association to visit our opposite numbers in Australia and New Zealand. The object of the exercise was to strengthen Empire ties at the Parliamentary level. The delegation was to consist of British and Canadian Parliamentarians, who would be the guests of the Australian and New Zealand Parliaments. The British Delegation was led by a senior Conservative member of the House of Commons, Colonel Wickham, and, as I was the only representative from the Lords, I was asked to act as the Deputy Leader. This arrangement also helped to keep the balance between the parties.

The Synod of Dort and Augustine: Focusing on Examen of Pareus and Iudicium of the British Delegation

The Synod of Dort and Augustine: Focusing on Examen of Pareus and Iudicium of the British Delegation

“Under the Sway of Coal,” or a Story of the British Coal Miner Harold Heslop, Who Failed to Become a Soviet Writer

The paper focuses on the rapid and short-living Soviet writing career of the British coal miner Harold Heslop. Between 1926 and 1931, three novels by Heslop were published in the USSR (in Russian translation) and the translation of a fourth was commissioned and completed, and in 1930 the author himself travelled to the USSR as one of two members of the British delegation at the Kharkov conference of the International Union of Revolutionary Writers (IURW). However, that was the end of his success: the translated novel Red Earth was not published nor were any of his later novels. The only venue for his rare shorter essays and occasional prose excerpts was the magazine International Literature. The paper discusses this curious writer’s biography from different perspectives. It analyzes at length the critical article by Anna Elistratova, published in Na literaturnom postu and International Literature, juxtaposing the two versions and the text of Heslop’s novel to contextualize the writer and his work in the Soviet literary criticism of the time. It explores archival materials—Heslop’s correspondence with different people and institutions as well as institutional papers—to discuss the case as personal as well as institutional history, representative of the situation of the 1930s. Finally the article shifts perspective to discuss the author and his work in the context of the British working-class literature of the time.

(Un)Familiar spaces of television production: the BBC’s visit to the Soviet Union in 1956

The sharing of expertise and know-how was an important practice in the early days of television production; delegations from national broadcasters visited each other to negotiate agreements concerning co-production and programme exchange. On one such occasion, in spring 1956, the BBC visited Soviet Central Television and their production facilities in Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev. Using that visit as vantage point, this article examines production values and professional ideologies in relation to the material spaces of television production. The article argues that the British delegation’s encounter with (un)familiar spaces of television production forced them to articulate their own production values in relation to material spaces. The final discussion suggests that the tensions provoked by the discrepancy between production values at Soviet Central Television and at the BBC may inform the main currents of television studies and television history.

Imperial literacy and indigenous rights: Tracing transoceanic circuits of a modern discourse

In 1838, amidst French imperial aggression in Tahiti, the reigning Indigenous monarch Queen Pomare wrote the first of many letters as a 'sister Queen' to Britain's Queen Victoria. In it she asserted her and her people's right to seek the protection of the British government who, after all, had brought colonisation to her shores. Two years later, Wurundjeri elder Billibellary, counselled a gathering of his clanspeople on a newly selected site of residence in Narre Narre Warren, a few miles remote from the burgeoning British settlement of Melbourne. Following his reportedly spirited address, he and other residents walked off the Narre Narre Warren station in a sovereign withdrawal of cooperation with colonial authorities. Earlier that same year, a few thousand miles to the east of Melbourne at Waitangi in Aotearoa New Zealand, a gathering of Maori chiefs walked out on treaty negotiations with a British delegation. Although some would eventually sign what became known as the Treaty of Waitangi, others permanently withdrew their consent and refused the British appropriation of full sovereignty over Maori land and its inseparable people. This article argues that these seemingly isolated moments of protest constitute the observable tip of a wider process underway within many indigenous communities in the late 1830s and 1840s.