Max Huber (diplomat)

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Max Huber (born December 28, 1874 in Zurich ; † January 1, 1960 there ) was a Swiss lawyer , politician and diplomat and represented Switzerland at a number of international conferences and institutions. In addition, he worked, among other things, as a member and President of the Permanent International Court of Justice in The Hague . From 1928 to 1944 he was President of the International Committee of the Red Cross .

Life

Max Huber

Max Huber was born in 1874 as the son of Peter Emil Huber-Werdmüller , engineer and founder of Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon , and Anna Marie Huber, b. Werthmüller was born in Zurich as the younger brother of Emil Huber-Stockar . He studied law in Lausanne, Zurich and Berlin from 1894 to 1897 and graduated with a doctorate in Berlin in 1897. He then worked for two years as secretary to the board of the Swiss Trade and Industry Association.

After several extensive trips to America, Australia and India, he was appointed professor of constitutional law, canon law and international public law at the University of Zurich in 1902 , where he held this position until 1921. In 1903 he acquired Wyden Castle in Ossingen , whereupon he was accepted as " Lord of the Castle" in the Herrenstuben Society in Winterthur . From 1914 to 1918 he served as a Zurich Cantonal Councilor . He was also a permanent legal advisor to the Federal Political Department , the Swiss Foreign Ministry. In this capacity he represented Switzerland in 1907 at the Second International Peace Conference in The Hague and at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 . Several times he headed the Swiss delegations in various bodies of the League of Nations. From 1920 to 1932 he was a member of the Permanent International Court of Justice in The Hague, from 1924 to 1927 he was its President and then Vice-President. He was the youngest member of the Tribunal on appeal in 1920.

Because of his experience in questions of international law, he was entrusted with the task of drafting the statute of the High Commissioner of the League of Nations for the repatriation of prisoners of war after the First World War . Later, from 1930 to 1933, he also became the first President of the International Nansen Office for Refugees , which came into being after the death of High Commissioner Fridtjof Nansen .

From 1915 to 1924 he was a member and at times also vice-chairman of the administrative committee of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung . He was also a member of the boards of directors of Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon (until 1944 as president), Aluminum-Industrie AG (until 1941 as president) and the Swiss reinsurance company . Aluminum-Industrie AG (AIAG) benefited from major orders from the armaments industry from 1938 onwards. While the AIAG generated a net profit of 21 million francs in 1941, the majority of the workers at the AIAG plant in Chippis in Valais had to get by on wages below the subsistence level.

ICRC presidency

In 1923 he was elected a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross. In 1928 he succeeded Gustave Ador as President of the Committee and held this office until 1944. During this time he made a significant contribution to the organization and competencies of the committee. In 1928, for example, he was involved in drafting the statutes of the International Red Cross for the ICRC, which had been founded as the umbrella organization for the International Committee of the Red Cross and the League of Red Cross Societies. A year later, the first Geneva Convention was revised and expanded and a second convention for the protection of prisoners of war was adopted.

At the age of 70 he resigned from the office of President. Carl Jacob Burckhardt was elected as his successor . Max Huber was then appointed honorary president of the committee. On December 10, 1945, in this function, he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize , which the committee had received for its work during the Second World War .

Publications

The large number of offices and tasks that Max Huber exercised in addition to his academic career meant that, despite his reputation, he did not leave behind a comprehensive and systematic work. His most important publication is the treatise entitled “The sociological foundations of international law” , which appeared in the yearbook of public law in 1910 and reprinted as an independent work in 1928. He took the view that earlier attempts to derive international law from natural law were too broad and indeterminate in their foundations and that a positivist view of international law was too formalistic.

Instead, he tried to establish the principles of international law from the assumed common interests of the international community of states and thus to look at international law on the basis of its practical effects. This view, accepted in current international law practice, was considered a completely new concept at the time. When these views were first published in 1910, Huber was certain that Europe would experience decades of terrible wars, followed by a new order characterized by freedom and political cooperation.

Awards

The awards that Max Huber received for his work included:

Works (selection)

  • The protection of military and international law interests in the Swiss penal code. Publishing house Stämpfli & Cie AG, Bern 1913
  • The sociological foundations of international law. Publishing house Dr. Walther Rothschild, Berlin 1928
  • Basics of national renewal. On the nature and meaning of the Swiss state. Gospel and National Movement. Schulthess, Zurich 1934
  • The Good Samaritan. Reflections on the Gospel and Work in the Red Cross. Victor Gollancz, London 1945
  • The International Red Cross. Idea and reality. Max Niehans Verlag, Zurich 1951

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alfred Ziegler: The Society of the Herrenstube zu Winterthur. Updated to the present day and provided with an appendix by Hans Klaui. Edited by the Herrenstubengesellschaft Winterthur, Winterthur 1956, p. 100.
personal data
SURNAME Huber, Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss lawyer, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross
DATE OF BIRTH December 28, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 1960
Place of death Zurich