ABSTRACT
During the first years of the twentieth century Belgian King Leopold II and his bloody colonial regime in Congo became the subject of what is sometimes considered the first modern international human rights campaign. The limited attention paid to the Congo Commission in recent academic literature stands in sharp contrast with the enormous amount of media coverage this commission received at the beginning of the twentieth century, not only in Belgium, but also in the UK, France, Germany, the USA and elsewhere. Until the end of the nineteenth century Belgium had nearly no colonial or imperial tradition; along with Germany and Italy the country belonged to the club of ‘colonial latecomers’. The interference in colonial affairs of non-experts, including members of parliament, was dangerous, according to Rolin, because life in tropical Africa differs so radically from life in Europe that it does not fit any universalist model of reason.
