The End of Civilization and the Rise of Human Rights: The Mid-Twentieth-Century Disjuncture

Mark Mazower argues that 1945 did not represent a clean break or a Year Zero for international politics. Instead, it marked the collapse of Europe's normative dominance and the end of the civilizational hierarchy that had defined international law since the 19th century. During the Victorian era, international law was explicitly designed for 'civilized' states, creating a binary between the civilized West and the rest of the world. This framework justified imperialism and colonial expansion as a 'civilizing mission.'

For much of the 19th century, 'civilization' served as the primary organizing principle for international relations. It was a liberal program that linked property rights, constitutional governance, and European cultural values to international legitimacy. However, the First World War and the subsequent rise of Nazism shattered the belief that European civilization was inherently superior or peaceful. As the League of Nations expanded to include non-European states, the Eurocentric language of 'civilization' became increasingly untenable and morally discredited.

Following the Second World War, the United Nations emerged in a world where the old civilizational dichotomy had lost its credibility. The new human rights regime was not a triumphant moral revolution but a pragmatic response to the failure of the interwar minority rights system. By shifting the focus from collective minority protections to abstract individual rights, the Great Powers were able to bypass the complexities of state sovereignty and ethnic tensions. However, this shift created a normative vacuum; while the new regime championed individual rights, it lacked robust enforcement mechanisms. The result was a system that often prioritized state interests and sovereignty over the protection of individuals, leaving the international community struggling to respond to humanitarian crises in the decades that followed.