Agenda
Monday,
17 September 2007
Morning
| 1. |
Opening
— President's remarks |
| 2. |
Secretary
General’s activity report on the activities
of the ICHS in 2005-2007 |
| 3. |
Treasurer’s
financial report and appointment of two auditors |
| 4. |
Presentation
by Professor Hans Blom on the preparations
for the Amsterdam Congress |
| Afternoon |
| 5. |
Admission
of new members to the ICHS |
| 6. |
Law
and freedom of research |
| 7. |
Approval
of accounts and vote on the Treasurer’s
report |
| 8. |
Reports
of the two sub-committees (Sydney General
Assembly) |
| 9. |
Nominating
Committee proposals |
Tuesday,
18 September 2007
Morning
| 10. |
Appointments
to the Nominating Committee |
| 11. |
Structure
of the Amsterdam Congress and discussion of
proposed themes |
| 12. |
Miscellaneous |
| 13. |
Closing
of the General Assembly |
President
José Luis Peset opened the session by welcoming
the members and thanking the Association of Chinese
Historians and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
for their hospitality. He reminded the Assembly
of the core mission of the ICHS, which is to bring
together historians from all over the world.
The
President then gave the floor to the Secretary General,
who did a roll call and explained the voting rules:
only one vote for each of the National Committees
and Affiliated International Organizations, and
no voting rights for the Internal Commissions. With
27 National Committees and 14 Affiliated International
Organizations in attendance, the quorum was superseded
and the meeting was deemed to be valid. The Secretary
General moved to amend one item on the agenda, i.e.
to replace “Relations with UNESCO”,
which is discussed in the Secretary General’s
report, by “Law and freedom of research”.
The General Assembly approved the agenda as amended.
| 2. |
Secretary
General’s report on the activities of
the ICHS in 2005-2007 |
The
General Assembly is an appropriate time to review
the operations of the ICHS since the most recent
Congress. And as this year’s meeting marks
the ICHS’s 80th anniversary (1926-2006), it
is also a good opportunity to take stock of the
past to see how far the Committee has come. The
core purpose of the General Assembly is to advance
the development of history by fostering cooperation
among historians around the world, primarily by
holding a history congress every five years. In
the 80 years since the Committee was established,
the conditions for building international cooperation
have changed dramatically, with the result that
the ICHS is now only one of many entities to fulfill
this function. Over the last 40 years, universities
and research institutes have significantly grown
and developed, leading to a surge in bilateral and
multilateral cooperative agreements and specialized
international conferences. Yet the ICHS has been
able to carve its own niche by focusing on the following
three objectives: 1) to remain a generalist association
composed of groups of historians united by nationality
or specialization; 2) to adopt and advocate a comparative
approach; and 3) to maintain its independence by
ensuring that the Committee continues to be led
by historians. By and large, the ICHS can boast
of a positive track record, as evidenced by an uninterrupted
string of quinquennial congresses since 1950 addressing
all periods and specializations in the field of
history. Of course, despite its best efforts, the
Committee continues to grapple with obstacles such
as low representation from some of the world’s
major regions, which is why it must continue to
examine its structure and practices on an ongoing
basis.
Overview
of ICHS activities
First
and foremost, the Bureau’s consistent and
efficient work should be underscored. Under the
presidency of José Luis Peset, the Bureau
has held two plenary meetings, one in Santiago de
Compostela on 6 and 7 October 2006, and the other
in Beijing, on 15 September 2007. The Bureau
restreint has held two meetings, the first
in Madrid on 24 February 2006, and the second
in Paris on 3 March 2007.
In
addition, the Bureau has had to replace two members.
After Professor Sorin Antohi resigned in October
2006, the Bureau appointed Roger Chartier of the
EHESS and the Collège de France as an Assessor
Member until the 2010 Congress. The Treasurer, Professor
Pierre Ducrey, whose term was to expire in Sydney
in 2005, graciously agreed to extend it until the
end of this year. Professor Laurent Tissot, of the
Université de Neuchâtel, is being proposed
as Treasurer until the Amsterdam Congress. The Secretary
General is therefore submitting nominations for
new members to the General Assembly.
Preparations
for the Beijing General Assembly, a joint effort
by the Chinese Historians Association, the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences and the ICHS General
Secretariat in Montréal, were lengthy and
complex, often requiring a great deal of effort
and attention to detail. In December 2006, the Secretary
General and the ICHS President travelled to Beijing
to finalize various details. In keeping with the
ICHS’s tradition of providing scientific content
at each event, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
and the Chinese Historians Association presented
a symposium on the state of contemporary Chinese
historiography. The Secretary General thanked the
Chinese Historians Association and the Chinese Academy
of Social Sciences for their outstanding work, excellent
organization and unfailing cooperation.
Gaps
in the membership’s geographic representation
continue to be one of the Committee’s weak
points, as the Secretary General has pointed out
in previous reports. Many commitments are still
not being fulfilled despite five years of outreach,
but at least the Committee’s initiatives are
generating interest and good will in many quarters.
Although a high level of scientific activity in
some regions of the world is unsustainable without
significant financial backing, the outlook is far
from bleak: since Oslo and Sydney, the African Historians
Association has remained very active, and projects
by the Korean and the Japanese National Committees
demonstrate that historians in the Asia-Pacific
region wish to maintain close ties. The ICHS is
also trying to make greater inroads in Latin America.
Moreover, the number of National Committees will
rise this year if the Assembly approves the application
of Kazakhstan. Overall, the ICHS’s membership
remains stable at 53 National Committees, 29 Affiliated
International Organizations and 12 Internal Commissions.
Preparing
the next Congress has been one of the Secretariat’s
major tasks since Sydney. A call for themes was
issued on 1 March 2006, and the deadline for submissions
was 31 October 2006. After a Bureau meeting, the
deadline was changed to 31 December 2006. The Secretariat
has received 201 proposals. At the Bureau meeting
in Santiago de Compostela, the Sydney Congress was
reviewed and minor changes were proposed for the
structure of the upcoming Congress. As the Assembly
will be dealing with this subject later, this report
will not discuss it further.
The
organization of the 2010 Congress is progressing
well. The Secretary General was invited to meet
the Netherlands Organizing Committee on 28 February
2007 in Amsterdam and tour the venues for the Congress.
The logistics of the Congress were entrusted to
the International Institute of Social History (Internationaal
Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis), which
has expertise in organizing international meetings.
Professor Hans Blom, the President of the Netherlands
Organizing Committee, would be discussing the details
of the organization in his report later in the day.
Also, the final list of themes will be decided by
the General Assembly.
One
of the Secretariat’s major tasks is to produce
the Bulletin, the Committee’s calling
card. The most recent edition (Volume 32-2006) was
published in 600 copies but not issued until March
2007 given the late scheduling of the Bureau’s
meeting in Santiago de Compostela. In view of the
expense of sending out the previous edition, which
contained the directories of the ICHS’s archives
in Paris and Lausanne, the most recent issue does
not contain a historical section. The size of the
Bulletin has to be limited in general due
to rising postage costs, but the Secretary General
will continue the tradition of including a section
on ICHS history. He is currently preparing a table
of contents of Bulletins published between 1953
and 2007. To save on postage costs in the future,
most historical documents about the Bulletin
will be available only on the ICHS’s Web site.
The
Web site is being updated more regularly and new
features are being added. It now contains the minutes
of the meetings of the ICHS’s various committees,
the membership directory, information on the Congress,
working documents, historical perspectives on the
ICHS, and a necrology section. Links are provided
to members’ sites, but since some of them
do not provide a link back to the ICHS, members
are reminded to include this feature. The Secretary
General is contemplating some changes to the Web
site but will have to stagger this project in view
of budget constraints.
At
the General Assembly in Sydney, two sub-committees
were formed to study the issues of expanding the
ICHS and its resources and establishing a procedure
for programming the quinquennial Congress. The sub-committees
have been active, but since the Assembly will be
discussing the sub-committees’ reports later,
this report does not elaborate any further.
The
ICHS maintains relations with UNESCO mainly through
the International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic
Studies (ICPHS), of which it is a founding member,
and the joint ICHS-UNESCO Committee. The ICPHS held
its General Assembly in Alexandria in November 2006,
but the Secretary General was unable to attend.
The significant financial problems stemming from
UNESCO’s steady reduction of the budget are
being resolved, but the situation remains uncertain.
The publication of Diogène magazine
is secure for now, but other ICPHS activities are
being scaled down.
The
Joint ICHS-UNESCO Committee has taken up much of
the Secretary General’s time since 2003. Bureau
members received the final report prepared for UNESCO
in December 2005. Now that UNESCO has withdrawn
funding as of 2006, the Joint Committee has ended
its useful life for the time being and is unlikely
to be re-created as it once was. Between 2000 and
2005, the budget of the Joint Committee was approximately
US$300,000. It still might be possible for the ICHS
to receive funding for specific events from UNESCO’s
funding program for multilateral or bilateral meetings,
also known as participation programs (PP), as long
as the events involve several member countries.
Thus, the Sydney experience has shown that a well-organized
plenary session can be very successful and that
a funding scenario might be achieved for Amsterdam.
The Secretary General has communicated with several
people connected to UNESCO in the hope of obtaining
one-time financing for the 2010 Congress.
As
for regional meetings, they are no doubt positive
and desirable, but it is impossible for the Secretary
General to continue organizing them because his
time is monopolized by other tasks. The Secretary
General proposed that Bureau members assume the
responsibility of organizing one or two regional
meetings during the quinquennium as a more equitable
way of distributing tasks and responsibilities.
He would also like to maintain the tradition of
including scientific content in all the meetings
of the Bureau and the General Assembly.
In
conclusion, the ICHS has limited means at its disposal
and depends in large measure on the volunteer work
of the President, the Treasurer and the Secretary
General. As the Committee has no executive secretary
or full-time personnel, the Secretariat cannot be
expected to meet further demands. The Assembly was
asked to keep these facts in mind as it prepares
to discuss the reports of the two sub-committees.
In closing, the Secretary General thanked Bureau
members, the National Committees, the Affiliated
International Organizations, and the Internal Commissions
for their cooperation, and reminded members of the
Committee’s debt to the History Department
of the Université du Québec à
Montréal, which assumes some of the
costs of running the Secretariat. Lastly, he thanked
Renée McNicoll for her invaluable work as
the Secretariat’s administrative assistant.
The
Assembly unanimously approved the Secretary General’s
activity report.
| 3. |
Treasurer’s
financial report and appointment of two auditors |
Treasurer
Pierre Ducrey presented the profit and loss accounts,
the balance sheets for 2005 and 2006 and the 24
May 2007 audit report by la Compagnie fiduciaire
Temco SA Lausanne (Suisse). He highlighted the following
points:
| • |
In
fiscal 2005, the year in which the General
Assembly was held in Sydney, the accounts
closed with a loss of CHF 35’081.96
despite the Committee’s efforts and
the subsidies it received. The balance sheet
fell from CHF 143’426.15 on 31
December 2004, to CHF 106’741.51 on
31 December 2005. |
| • |
On
the other hand, fiscal 2006 closed with a
surplus of CHF 15’311.81, which
brought the balance sheet to CHF 126’267.43
on 31 December 2006. |
Although
the Bureau and the Bureau restreint are
striving to cut costs, some expenses continue to
rise, as shown in the accompanying chart on pages
84 and 85. Overall, the Committee’s funds
are steadily decreasing, which is cause for concern.
The
Treasurer described how the Bureau restreint
and the Bureau are cutting costs and increasing
the Committee’s capital where possible. For
example, Bureau members were asked to turn to their
educational institutions for help with travel expenses.
This request has already had positive results. It
is also hoped that one host country will assume
the entire cost of one Bureau meeting each quinquennium.
And lastly, if organizers can find adequate financing
for the 2010 Amsterdam Congress, the Committee will
not need to provide any financial support as it
did for the 2005 Sydney Congress.
The
Treasurer deplored the fact that some members are
irregular in their payments. But worse still, three
South American National Committees — Bolivia,
Chile, and Venezuela — have left the ICHS’s
ranks in the past 10 years. The Committee will work
on bringing back some of these committees.
Lastly,
the Treasurer praised l’Université
du Québec à Montréal (UQAM),
the Secretary General’s institution, and l’Université
de Lausanne, the Treasurer’s institution.
Both schools have been providing facilities, faxes
and telephones, computers, software, and bookkeeping
and other services free of charge, thus benefiting
all ICHS members and saving the Committee substantial
funds.
The
Assembly then appointed Arnita A. Jones (USA) and
Alexander Heerma van Voss (Netherlands) as
the two internal auditors who will examine the Treasurer’s
documents.
| 4. |
Presentation
by Professor Hans Blom on preparations for
the Amsterdam Congress |
Professor
Hans Blom presented a detailed account of the
organization of the Amsterdam Congress, which
will be held from Sunday, 22 August to Saturday,
28 August 2010. He described the amenities of
the City of Amsterdam and its main cultural, intellectual
and tourist attractions. The sessions will be
held at the University of Amsterdam, which has
a good choice of venues near restaurants and hotels
in the city. A variety of reasonably priced hotel
rooms have been found to suit every budget. The
format for the opening and closing sessions has
now been decided, and the organization is progressing
rapidly. For members’ convenience, registration
will be on-line on the Website of the Congress
at: www.ichs2010.org.
After
discussion with the Bureau and other parties,
it was decided that the registration fee would
be 240 Euros for regular registration and 380
Euros for late registration. The student rates
are 120 Euros and 190 Euros. These fees are comparable
to those of other international congresses. As
in the past, simultaneous English and French translation
of the major thematic sessions will be provided,
and other languages may be added if resources
permit. Reiterating the importance of attracting
young historians to the Congress, Professor Blom
pointed out the need to carefully select the participants
for the specialized sessions.
The
Netherlands Organizing Committee has developed
a financing plan for the Congress, which includes
a solidarity fund to encourage the attendance
of colleagues from emerging countries. Professor
den Boer presented the highlights of the plan,
including its purpose and conditions, emphasizing
that the Netherlands Organizing Committee would
have a significant sum earmarked for this aspect
of the budget. He also explained the criteria
that would govern the allocation of funds. The
President thanked Professors Blom and den Boer
for their reports and the encouraging prospects
for the 2010 Congress.
| 5. |
Admission
of new members to the ICHS |
Jean-Claude
Robert took the floor again to present an affiliation
request from the Association of Kazakhstan Historians.
The Bureau recommended that the General Assembly
admit the Association as a National Committee,
based on the report of the correspondence of the
Secretary General with the Association and the
verification of its constitution.
The
International Commission on the History of the
Russian Revolution has responded to the Bureau
restreint’s proposal to strike it off
the list of Internal Commissions. After acknowledging
that the Commission had deviated from its constitution,
the President of the Commission asked the Secretary
General to help reinstate the organization. In
view of this new development, the Assembly agreed
to follow up on the Bureau restreint’s
motion and mandated the Secretary General to assist
the Commission. The Bureau will defer any decisions
on the Commission’s status until a future
General Assembly.
The motion was carried unanimously.
| 6. |
Law
and freedom of research |
During
its session of 19-20 April 2007, the Council of
the European Union adopted a framework decision
on the fight against racism and xenophobia, a
decision which threatens to fetter historical
research.
This framework decision is the result of an initiative
launched at the beginning of January 2007 by the
German Justice Minister, Ms Brigitte Zypries,
who wished to bring to its conclusion a process
which began in 2001, imposing on all Member States
of the European Union legislation to criminalize
the denial of genocides, notably the Holocaust.
This legislation already exists in Germany, Austria,
France, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Slovenia and
the Czech Republic. This initiative provoked a
great deal of negative responses but ran its course
at the European level, and will be given wider
application through this framework decision, which
applies not only to racist and xenophobic remarks
and the denial of the Holocaust, but also to “publicly
condoning, denying or grossly trivialising crimes
of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes
as defined in the Statute of the International
Criminal Court (Articles 6, 7 and 8)”. Within
two years after the adoption of this framework
decision, each Member State will be required to
adopt matching legislation which makes provisions
for a penalty of between 1 to 3 years’ imprisonment.
This decision raises many concerns, such as vagueness
about which judicial instances will be empowered
to decide which historical events will be considered
as crimes. The Holocaust is not included, since
it has been subjected to the Nuremberg Trials.
As for the International Criminal Court, it is
only allowed to judge crimes committed after 1 July
2002. Therefore, one assumes that for the other
crimes, decisions will be taken by courts set
up on an ad hoc basis, as was the case for Rwanda
or the former Yugoslavia, by ordinary judges in
a given country or else by legislative bodies.
In addition, the concept of « grossly
trivialising » is very vague and, as a result,
can be abused very easily. This framework decision
is also concerned with crimes of totalitarian
regimes, even if these crimes remain outside of
the stated normative framework: the decision considers
these crimes to be « deplorable »
and envisages extending this norm to them after
a « public European hearing »
organised by the Commission. Technically the aim
of this hearing remains undefined, though one
may speculate that it will consist in drawing
up a list of historical events which will form
part of a list of enumerated crimes. This decision
comes in the wake of the French memorial laws
[lois mémorielles]: first the
Gayssot Law in 1990, about the denial of the crimes
pursued at Nuremberg; then, a law of 2001, which
recognised the Armenian genocide during World
War I, a law that was revised in 2006 with norms
criminalizing denial; the Taubira Law in 2001,
on the treatment of African slaves; and the Mekachera
Law in 2005, on the subject of French colonialism.
These laws stirred up strong protests among French
historians, notably the Liberté pour
l’Histoire [Freedom for History] petition
in 2005, which received 1000 signatures.
All this shows the dangers of such legislation.
Although it arises from the necessary and just
fight against racism and xenophobia, it ends up
— through a series of conceptual shifts
— touching on issues which are the proper
domain of historical research. Indeed, it is necessary
for historians and politicians to keep at arms’
length, each in his own domain. Politicians can
decide which use of history best serves their
own ends, by instituting official commemorations,
for example; but they must not interfere —
through the judicial system — in the work
of historians. This framework decision marks a
very dangerous turning point in the delicate and
often difficult relations between politicians
and historians. It is therefore necessary that
historians in Europe and elsewhere in the world
address the motives and the consequences of such
a framework decision.
Motion
of the ICHS
Motion
on the “Council framework decision on combating
racism and xenophobia” (Council of European
Union, April 2007)
Since
the decision of the Council can have an impact
on the freedom of research, it is moved that,
| 1. |
ICHS
is deeply concerned with this complex matter
of the possible intrusion of the power of
the law into historical research. |
| 2. |
ICHS
urges all its members to examine more closely
this question and initiate discussion among
their own members. |
| 3. |
ICHS
proposes to set up a special session in
Amsterdam in 2010, on the theme “Historical
research, ethics and law”. |
Motion
carried.
| 7. |
Approval
of accounts and vote on the Treasurer’s
report |
The
two internal auditors read their report later
in the day. Having examined the profit and loss
accounts, the balance sheet and the audits for
the 2005 and 2006 fiscal years, they moved that
the General Assembly:
|
• |
Approve
the accounts, the balance sheet and Temco
Lausanne SA’s audit; |
