- Person
- Hersch Lauterpacht
- Lived
- 1897–1960
- Field
- International law
- From
- British (born in Austrian Galicia)
The story
In the 1920s international law had far less recorded case law than national legal systems, and the decisions that did exist were scattered across the reports of many countries and tribunals. Hersch Lauterpacht, a young lecturer at the London School of Economics, had arrived from Vienna in 1923 and completed his doctorate under Professor Arnold McNair, who held the chair of international law.
In 1929 Lauterpacht and McNair launched a project to make these decisions available to lawyers everywhere: the Annual Digest of International Law Cases. The series collected decisions of international tribunals and of national courts on questions of international law. Lauterpacht edited the series for many years, from the early volumes of the Annual Digest and Reports of Public International Law Cases into the first volumes published under its new title, International Law Reports.
The Jewish Historical Society of England described the series as an indispensable source for any research in international law. By the early 1980s it extended to more than sixty volumes.
The digest was one of several lasting contributions Lauterpacht made to the working materials of the field. He also edited one of the two most important international law periodicals in the English language, a task that demanded great patience, scholarship and tact, and for twenty-five years he edited Oppenheim's International Law, the standard treatise on the subject. Alongside this editorial work he wrote five books of his own, from Private Law Sources and Analogies of International Law (1927) to Recognition in International Law (1947).
This work shaped his later career as a judge. When he joined the International Court of Justice in 1955, he brought with him a knowledge of international practice built up through years of editing the reports. Because international law has relatively few precedents, judges must often identify and develop principles for situations that have never arisen before, and a reliable record of earlier decisions makes that possible.
Why it matters
By making court decisions easy to find, the reports helped lawyers, judges and governments apply international law consistently.
About Hersch Lauterpacht
Galician-born Cambridge jurist who put the individual at the heart of international law, helped bring “crimes against humanity” to Nuremberg, and sat on the World Court.
More about Hersch Lauterpacht
- Hersch Lauterpacht put crimes against humanity into lawHersch Lauterpacht recommended the charges 'war crimes' and 'crimes against humanity' used at Nuremberg, putting the protection of individuals at the heart of international law.
- Hersch Lauterpacht edited the classic international law textFor 25 years Hersch Lauterpacht edited Oppenheim's International Law so thoroughly that it became known in legal circles as Lauterpacht's Oppenheim.
- Hersch Lauterpacht's ideas shaped two human rights chartersEnglish Heritage notes that Hersch Lauterpacht's 1945 book An International Bill of the Rights of Man helped form the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention.
- Hersch Lauterpacht helped codify the law of treatiesAs a member of the UN International Law Commission in the early 1950s, Hersch Lauterpacht served as its special rapporteur on the law of treaties.
Sources
- Sir Hersch Lauterpacht: teacher, writer and judge, a presidential address by Dorothy Stone Jewish Historical Society of England
- Hersch Lauterpacht Wikipedia
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