Our Next Seminar

SEMESTER 2 2025/26

Raphaël Cheriau (Aix Marseille Université / Paris-Sorbonne)

'British anti-slavery in the Indian Ocean (1873-1914) and the rise of "crime against humanity" in the public arena'

Venue: K114, Newman Building

Date: Thurs 26 February 2026

Time: 4pm

Bio:

Dr Raphaël Cheriau completed his PhD in 2017 as part of the cotutelle agreement between Paris-IV Sorbonne and UCD's School of History. His research received the National University of Ireland Prize for dual degrees. His research explores new perspectives on the complex relationship of anti-slave trade policies in the Indian Ocean with colonization and the emergence of humanitarian intervention in international relations. He published Imperial Powers and Humanitarian Interventions (Routledge, 2021) and l’intervention d’humanité (cnrs, 2023)

Raphaël is an associate member of the Centre for War Studies (University College Dublin). He is also an associate researcher at Mesopolhis (Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, IEP d’Aix) and the Roland Mousnier Centre (Paris-Sorbonne).

Between 1873 and 1914, British policies against the slave trade in the Zanzibar Sultanate had a great impact over international relations and international law. In fact, interventions led by the Royal Navy there questioned in which exact circumstances a foreign nation could not respect the sovereignty of States when engaging humanitarian action. In this context, humanitarians – among which British abolitionists stood prominently – contributed to the emergence of the concept of ‘humanitarian intervention’ in international law as well as the popularity of ‘crime against humanity’ in the press or on the occasion of international conferences. Anti-slavery campaigners did so to support interventions ‘in the name humanity’, or ‘humanitarian intervention’, before international law as well as public opinion in order to press government officials into action. Without slipping into anachronism, it will be shown that ‘crime against humanity’ increasingly became popular in the press and the political arena between 1873 and 1914 in a wide different range of contexts, long before finally entering international law at the Nuremberg trials.