Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity | Ennals, Martin

[JULY 27, 1927–1991]

Human rights activist

Charismatic but modest, Martin Ennals was one of a handful of figures who catapulted human rights from the fringes of transnational political relevance into the center of international relations in the second half of the twentieth century. This he did primarily by transforming a small, recently formed body, Amnesty International (AI), into the premier human rights organization.

Educated at Walsall Grammar School (in England, 1935–1945) and the London School of Economics (where he pursued a B.S. in international relations, 1945–1949), Ennals was present at the 1948 United Nations (UN) General Assembly when it adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Not long afterward he began working at the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris (1951–1959), where he found himself prominently involved in a historic human rights...