The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919. That summer marked the
beginning of two contrasting historical developments. One movement that gathered
momentum advocated for peaceful international solutions and justice and for the
rescue of the victims, especially those of the Armenian Genocide and other mass
atrocities. First steps of international justice were debated, the first High Commission
for Refugees was created by the League of Nations. On the other hand, a contrasting
movement set the ideological foundations of the worst atrocities the century was yet to experience.

In this regard, the conference sits at the intersection of two burgeoning fields of
historical inquiry: the history of humanitarianism and international justice, on the one
hand, and the history of political violence and radical political ideology in the interwar
period, on the other. It aims to explore how these contrasting movements were
affected by the atrocities of World War I and by the Treaties that ended the war (from
Versailles to Lausanne), and what part they eventually played in political thinking in Europe.