Author Archives: Roman Birke

About Roman Birke

Roman Birke is a research and teaching associate for modern history at Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena. His research focusses on a transnational history of the twentieth century, including the history of human rights, population control and gender. In 2018, he co-edited a volume entitled Das Geschlecht der Menschenrechte im 20. Jahrhundert (Gender and Human Rights in the 20th Century, Wallstein, 2018). He earned his PhD from the University of Vienna in 2018 and is currently developing his thesis into a book about the role of human rights for the population control movement from the 1940s to the 1990s (Wallstein, 2020).

“It is Under the Banner of the Defence of Human Rights that We Shall Gather Our Crusade”: Human Rights and the Population Control Movement from the 1940s to the 1970s

Abstract: The essay analyses the role of human rights for the population control movement from the 1940s to the 1970s. It is based on records from the Population Council, the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the United Nations. It shows that rights-based language was introduced by advocates of population control and not by its critics and argues that portraying overpopulation as a problem for the realization of human rights became a successful political strategy in building alliances with states and the UN’s leadership. Both were Continue reading → Continue reading →