Celebrating the 79th Anniversary of the United Nations Charter: San Francisco 1945

The International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions (IC) is recognized as an Affiliated Society with the American Historical Association. Its scholars have participated in AHA annual meetings since 2020. The International Commission was founded in Lausanne in 1936 and has been continuously active throughout the world since 1945. The International Commission publishes the Journal of Parliaments, Estates and Representation three times a year.  Please see www.ichrpi.info/ for further information regarding the history of the organization and its purposes. The following topics have been designed to solicit the interest of scholars who work in the areas of political and parliamentary history at any time in the last 3,000 years and anywhere in the world.

In 1945 between 25 April and 26 June the United Nations Conference on International Organization (the San Francisco Conference) hammered out the text of the United Nations Charter/Declaration.  The conference took place as World War II came to its entirely foreseeable conclusion.  Of interest, Byelorussia and Ukraine (in their Soviet Socialist iterations) were invited to join by the conference. See

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/history-of-the-un/san-francisco-conference

What remains of the optimism of 1945? What can ‘an international organization designed to end war and promote peace, justice and better living for all mankind’ accomplish, given authoritarian tendencies in civil government around the globe. Not to overlook the fact that some of these nations possess nuclear-arsenals or are building these weapons. Perhaps, if modestly reduced, expectations that parliamentarism has a role to play in maintaining ‘peace, justice and economic well-being’ have been justified. 

31 May 2023 is the AHA’s deadline for Affiliated Societies to submit panels with scholar abstracts, bios [including institutional affiliation or independent scholar status]. Therefore, the International Commission requests that scholars submit this information by 20 May 2023. The 2024 annual meeting of the AHA (and International Commission panels) will take place in San Francisco. For further details on this point see www.historians.org/annual-meeting/future-meetings.

Please contact Dr. Peter J. Aschenbrenner, National Convenor (US) for further information. We also welcome the interest of scholars wishing to serve as panel chairs and/or commentators.   The rules on remote participation at AHA/IC panels are in a state of flux so please check with Dr. Aschenbrenner for details on this point.