“Pravova derzhava”. Issue 37 (2026), pages 331–344.

DOI: 10.33663/0869-2491-2026-37-331-344

Ivanova Anastasiia
Evolution of Human Rights Protection Under the Impact of Armed Conflicts: Hersch Lauterpacht’s Contribution

ISSN online: 2617-9776 print: 0869-2491

This research has been carried out with the support of the MSCA4Ukraine project, which is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the MSCA4Ukraine Consortium as a whole nor any individual member institutions of the MSCA4Ukraine Consortium can be held responsible for them.

Relevance. Lauterpacht’s conception of individual rights and the criminal responsibility of states has gained renewed urgency in light of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has exposed the fragility of the international legal order he helped shape. His insistence on the primacy of human dignity and the prohibition of aggression offers a powerful normative framework for assessing ongoing atrocities and reinforcing accountability mechanisms today.

Literature review on the topic of the study. Lauterpacht’s contribution to the establishment of international law and order, analyzing his work in the context of the Nuremberg trials, the evolution of the concept of “crimes against humanity,” and the formation of universal human rights standards, was studied by Elihu Lauterpacht, Martti Koskenniemi, Phillipe Sands, and others. In Ukraine, Professor Petro Rabinovich has researched Lauterpacht’s work on human rights. At the same time, the influence of military conflicts on his views remains insuficiently systematised, and the historical legal foundations of his human rights concept have not yet been the subject of research.

Objective. The purpose of this article is to examine how war and the military conflicts of the 20th century influenced the evolution of the concept of human rights in the intellectual legacy of Hersch Lauterpacht, its significance for contemporary international law, and the role of the historical-legal approach to its justification.

Problem statement. The article examines the evolution of human rights protection under the impact of twentieth-century armed conflicts and highlights the pivotal contribution of Hersch Lauterpacht to the development of the modern human rights doctrine. It traces how the catastrophic experience of global warfare reshaped international legal thinking and facilitated the emergence of the individual as an autonomous subject of international law. Particular attention is devoted to Lauterpacht’s historical legal justification of universal human rights and his argument for the establishment of binding international guarantees capable of limiting state sovereignty.

Presentation of the main material. The study demonstrates that Lauterpacht’s ideas formed the intellectual foundation for elevating human rights to the status of universal legal norms and influenced the development of key concepts such as “crimes against humanity”.

The author demonstrates how Lauterpacht constructs a complex dialectical picture of the interrelationships and mutual influence of natural law, international law, and human rights. In fact, he traces how the concept of human rights drew its strength and support from natural law; how natural law owed much of its viability and development to its connection with the concept of human rights. He explores the role that natural law played in the creation of modern international law and the impetus that it, in turn, received from the law of nations. He demonstrates the benefits that international law has derived from the concept of human rights, and what it has contributed to it in turn.

The author also refers to Lauterpacht’s development of the concept of crimes against humanity during the war and their subsequent criminalization by international and national law. He traces how this concept changed under the influence of the Nuremberg Tribunal and international normative decisions and judicial practice.

Conclusions. The author considers Gersh Lauterpacht’s contribution to international law to be invaluable. His concepts of international protection of human rights and crimes against humanity, which became the first recognition of fundamental human rights in the international law. The crimes against humanity included in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal were of decisive importance at the Nuremberg trials and will be no less important in the future at the International Military Tribunal for the prosecution and punishment of the main war criminals of Putin’s Russia.

The figure of Hersch Lauterpacht is gradually returning to Ukrainian cultural heritage, with a memorial plaque installed on the walls of the law faculty of Lviv National University; an information board dedicated to the international lawyer, judge of the UN International Court of Justice, and prosecutor of the Nuremberg Tribunal, Hersch Lauterpacht, has been unveiled at 6 Teatralna Street in Lviv; new dissertations and other scientific studies dedicated to his academic legacy are appearing. A valuable academic tribute to this figure would be the translation of his still relevant works into Ukrainian, which we hope will be realized in the future.

Keywords: Hersch Lauterpacht, human rights, natural law, international recognition, history of international law.

References

1. Sands, Phillipe (2016). East West Street: On the Origins of “Genocide” and “Crimes Against Humanity”. London: Orion Publishing Co.

2. Clark, M. (2016). “British Contributions to the Concept of Recognition during the Interwar Period: Williams, Baty and Lauterpacht”. In British Influences on International Law, 1915’2015. Leiden, Niederlande: Brill / Nijhoff. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004284173_008 

3. Collins, R. (2016). “The Progressive Conception of International Law: Brierly and Lauterpacht in the InterbellumPeriod”. In British Influences on International Law, 1915’2015. Leiden, Niederlande: Brill / Nijhoff. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004284173_020 

4. Barrett, J., & Gauci, J. (Eds.). (15 Dec. 2020). British Contributions to International Law, 1915–2015 (Set). Leiden, Niederlande: Brill / Nijhoff. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004386242

5. Simons, C. b. N., Legal Officer, Belgian Central Office for Seizure and Confiscation. (2020). “Chapter 3 Hersch Lauterpacht, The Function of Law in the International Community, 1933”. In British Contributions to International Law, 1915–2015. Leiden, Niederlande: Brill / Nijhoff. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004386242_004 

6. Vrdoljak, Ana Filipa, Human rights and genocide: the work of Lauterpacht and Lemkin in modern international law, European journal of international law, 2009, Vol. 20, No.4, pp. 1163–1194. URL: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/34825 

7. Lauterpacht, Hersch (1950). International law and human rights. London: Stevens & Sons, Ltd.

8. Lauterpacht, Hersch (1945). An International Bill of the Rights of Man. New York: Columbia University Press.

9. Antonio, Cassese (2009). Affirmation of the Principles of International Law recognized by the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal General Assembly resolution 95 (I) New York, 11 December 1946. URL: https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/ga_95-i/ga_95-i.html9/ 

Дата першого надходження рукопису до видання: 29.01.2026
Дата прийнятого до друку рукопису після рецензування: 03.03.2026
Дата публікації: 24.03.2026