The experience of the inter-war period and World War II shifted international opinion away from the principle of nationality as the foundation for a cohesive, secure, and just international order. As the war drew to a close, political leaders and resistance fighters began to consider the type of political order that would arise from the ruins of post-Versailles Europe. Gone from the discourse was the emphasis on national self-determination and minority rights. Despite the attempted extermination of ethnic and national minorities that had occurred on the eve of the war, few spoke of renewing the institutional commitment to protect minorities, nor was there talk of granting statehood to dispossessed nations. Sovereignty would be restored to states under German occupation, however there was little interest in redrawing borders to accommodate national claims of self-determination. Nationality would be restricted to the cultural sphere, devoid of any political significance. Instead, the focus shifted toward the citizen as the foundation of sovereign authority. Human rights, not national rights, would be the guiding principle.

Most scholars agree that the development of human rights as an international issue was largely the result of the Holocaust and the partial triumph of liberalism as an ideology after the defeat of the Axis powers. However the institution of human rights protection did not sweep the globe after the war, even in those regions under strong Western influence.