Internationalist Vision for a Postwar World: H. V. Evatt, Politics and the Law

Abstract

Herbert Vere Evatt, Minister for External Affairs in the postwar period (1941 – 1949), has been labelled by his contemporaries, biographers and historians as an internationalist. He is most often associated with playing a pivotal role in the formation of the UN, with advocating an independent Australian foreign policy and with increasing Australia’s involvement in the Asia-Pacific region. Evatt’s commitment to an internationalist framework was however, mitigated by his adhesion to a set of political and legal ideologies that effectively undermined the vision he promulgated for the postwar world.