International law and the rule of law in the British Empire, 1899 - 1921

Abstract

This thesis analyses the history of international law and humanitarianism in the British Empire, concentrating on South Africa and Ireland from 1899 – 1921. Drawing from archival research gathered in South Africa, the UK, Ireland, and the United States, it contributes to global histories of international law. This project is framed as a socio-legal history, exploring how international legal categories and classifications shifted conflict experiences for ordinary people, including soldiers, prisoners, doctors, and nurses. It starts by analysing the emergence of international legal codification in the late-19th century, focusing on the 1899 Hague Conference. It first explores debates over the application of these laws devised at the Hague to the Second South African War (1899 – 1902), to understand the alleged limits of international law and its exclusion from internal, imperial conflicts. It then analyses the use of the Red Cross symbol and language of the Geneva Convention by guerrilla fighters in South Africa as constructing international law’s applicability through practice. Turning to Ireland, it uncovers a similar deployment of the medical relief under the aegis of the Red Cross during the Easter 1916 rebellion and subsequent guerrilla conflict. It shows that Irish activists used the rhetoric and methods of international humanitarian organisations during the struggle for independence (1916 – 1921). Finally, it explores the legal challenges made against the British Empire by Irish prisoners to be treated as prisoners of war rather than political prisoners as an effort to reclassify the conflict as an independent war.