‘A thoroughly bad and vicious solution’: humanitarianism, the World Court, and the modern origins of population transfer

A powerful mechanism of legally formalised demographic engineering, the inter-war exchange of minorities between Greece and Turkey constitutes the locus classicus of population transfer in modern international law. This article provides a contextual discussion of the Permanent Court of International Justice’s attempt to fix the boundary between state power and international authority in Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations.

A powerful mechanism of legally formalised demographic engineering, the inter-war exchange of minorities between Greece and Turkey constitutes the locus classicus of population transfer in modern international law. This article provides a contextual discussion of the Permanent Court of International Justice’s attempt to fix the boundary between state power and international authority in Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations.