Hans Max Huber

Nationality

Switzerland

Date of Birth

1874

Date of Death

1960

Political
Preference

Hans Max Huber was born in Zurich, Switzerland and studied law at the universities of Lausanne, Zurich and Berlin. Huber was a Swiss lawyer and diplomat and represented Switzerland in all kind of international fora. He received a Nobel Prize for his work as President of the International Committee of the Red Cross during the Second World War.

Huber was appointed professor of constitutional law, canon law and international public law at the University of Zurich in 1902, where he held this position until 1921. As permanent legal advisor to the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the First World War, he led the Swiss delegations to various bodies of the League of Nations several times. From 1920 to 1932 he was a member of the Permanent International Court of Justice in The Hague, from 1924 to 1927 he was its president and then vice president. In 1928 he succeeded Gustave Ador as President of the International Committee of the Red Cross and held this position until 1944.

An important aspect of Huber’s thought was his religious belief. A member of the Protestant Church of Zürich, he became became an active participant of the ecumenical movement in the early 1930s. For the Oxford Conference of the Life and Work Movement in 1937, Huber expressed his ideas about a supranational ethos that the church had to infuse international law with. Huber thus foresaw an important role of the Church in international affairs and provided a pathway how the social-ethical mission of the Church could be translated into an international programme.