The International League for the Rights of Man, Amnesty International, and the Changing Fate of Human Rights Activism from the 1940s through the 1970s

In the late 1940s, the International League for the Rights of Man greeted the newborn human rights system at the United Nations as a beacon of hope. Founded in the midst of the Second World War, the League had all along advocated worldwide safeguards for the protection of individuals. Confident that international relations were on the verge of a new era, its activists invested all their energies into supporting the development of international law and the establishment of supervisory mechanisms at the world organization. Roughly fifteen years later, however, the initial enthusiasm had largely dissipated. In 1966, Roger Baldwin, the League’s director, reached a bleak conclusion: “If we look back on the 24 years of the League, the record shows an influential role at the United Nations, greater than that of any NGO, but even so small; [and] many interventions with governments, some successful and many not.”¹

At around the same time, Amnesty International, founded in 1961, was struggling hard to survive. The organization’s credibility was severely damaged by publicity surrounding its links to the British government and strife among the leadership.² Several national sections were about to collapse, and the overall growth of the international movement was subsiding. After prolonged preparatory work, the U.S. section was finally established in 1967 but faced years of frustration, lacking money, members, and dynamism. The “American operation,” concluded Ivan Morris, one of the section’s founders, in 1970, was “an unmitigated failure.”³ By the end of the following decade, Amnesty International presented a completely different picture. In 1977 the organization was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, rising to worldwide recognition and fame. It had successfully spread knowledge about the plight of what it called “prisoners of conscience” and by means of a widely noticed campaign sparked a “rediscovery” of torture. At the same time, Amnesty’s U.S. section saw a vast influx of new activists. Numbering a few thousand at the beginning of the 1970s, its membership soared to almost 100,000 by the end of the decade.

These three moments in the life of two non-governmental organizations, while providing only small glimpses into the evolution of human rights activism, suggest two important observations. First, both indicate the changing fate of private initiatives in this realm, illustrating how much the outreach and potential success of civil human rights engagement varied in different periods. Second, if variance was considerable, there is no easy explanation for it. Why did the League regard its postwar activities as largely futile, operating as it did in a period that historians have depicted as the triumphal breakthrough of human rights on the international stage? Why did Amnesty International have so much difficulty getting started?⁴ And how could an enterprise that seemed doomed to failure in the late 1960s become a powerful international force only a decade later?

Even though non-governmental organizations can arguably be considered the most important driving force behind international human rights politics after the Second World War, historians have so far devoted scarce attention to them. Accounts by two protagonists of the human rights movement provide interesting background information.⁵ Several groundbreaking publications have elucidated important aspects of Amnesty International’s history.⁶ Other organizations have attracted far less interest. A well-founded political science study provides a historical overview of the International Commission of Jurists.⁷ No similarly careful study exists on the International League for the Rights of Man or, for that matter, on the Anti-Slavery Society, the Watch Committees, and numerous other important NGOs. Little is yet known about the motivations of activists, the historical contexts in which their engagement unfolded, and the inner workings of organizations.

In providing an archive-based study of the International League and Amnesty International, both the International Secretariat and the U.S. section, I pursue three interrelated objectives in this essay. First, I aim to deepen our understanding of two important organizations, examining their institutional development and practices, their political projects, and their impact upon international...