Marguerite Frick-Cramer

Marguerite Frick-Cramer
Cramer at the International Prisoners-of-War Agency during WWI
Born(1887-12-28)28 December 1887
Geneva, Switzerland
Died22 October 1963(1963-10-22) (aged 75)
Geneva, Switzerland
NationalitySwiss
Scientific career
FieldsHistory, International Humanitarian Law
Signature

Marguerite "Meggy"[1] Frick-Cramer (28 December 1887 – 22 October 1963), born Renée-Marguerite Cramer, was a Swiss legal scholar, historian, and humanitarian activist.[2] She was the first woman to sit on the governing body of an international organization, when she was made a member of the board of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 1918.

In 1910, she became the third woman in Switzerland to obtain the license for working as an advocate. In 1917, she became the first ever female delegate of the ICRC,[3] and the first ever female member of its governing body in 1918.[4][5] Simultaneously, she became the first female historian to become a deputy professor in Switzerland.[6] As the first woman to co-draft a Geneva Convention in 1929, Frick-Cramer was a pioneer for gender equality in the development of international humanitarian law.[7]

During the reign of Nazism in Germany, and especially during the Second World War, she became an outspoken advocate inside the ICRC leadership, publicly denouncing Nazi Germany's systems of concentration and extermination camps.[5][8]

  1. ^ "Briefwechsel zwischen Carl Jacob Burckhardt und Marguerite Frick-Cramer". vge.swisscovery.slsp.ch. Archived from the original on 7 October 2021. Retrieved 6 September 2021.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Palmieri, Daniel (Winter 2012). "An institution standing the test of time? A review of 150 years of the history of the International Committee of the Red Cross" (PDF). International Review of the Red Cross. 94 (888): 1279. doi:10.1017/S1816383113000039. S2CID 144089076. Archived (PDF) from the original on 7 November 2017. Retrieved 4 November 2017.
  5. ^ a b Favez, Jean-Claude (1988). Une mission impossible ? [An impossible mission?] (in French). Lausanne: Payot.
  6. ^ Herrmann, Irène (2019). Marguerite Cramer : appréciée même des antiféministes (in French). Geneva: Fondation Gustave Ador. pp. 154–155. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Hopgood, Stephen (2013). The Endtimes of Human Rights. Cornell University Press. pp. 47–68.