Sir Hersch Lauterpacht’s Concept of the Task of the International Judge

Abstract

When the late Sir Hersch Lauterpacht became a member of the International Court of Justice in February, 1955 (a position he was to fill effectively for barely five years, until the fall of 1959), he went to The Hague with some thirty years of devoted study and practice of international law behind him. As teacher and student of international law, as a most highly qualified publicist (in the words of Article 38(1) (d) of the Statute of the Court) of recognized universal authority, he had devoted himself both to the law in general and in particular to the problems of the judicial settlement of international disputes, whether by the Permanent Court of International Justice and its present-day successor, the International Court of Justice, or by ad hoc arbitration tribunals. Indeed, his writings as a whole display a rare preoccupation with the entire philosophy and the practical problems of the judicial settlement of international disputes, together with a deep understanding of its limitations and a satisfying freedom both from putting forward extravagant claims in its behalf and from purely theoretical speculations.