Justice among Nations. A History of International Law - Stephen C. Neff

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of what became, for many years, the standard bibliography of international
legal literature.
Even when international law was taught in universities, there was some
division of opinion as to whether it was best done as part of a law curricu-
lum. Some regarded it instead as part of the study of public aff airs in gen-
eral, rather than as a matter for legal specialists. John Stuart Mill was of this
persuasion. In his inaugural address as rector of St. Andrews University in
Scotland in 1867, he contended that international law should form “a part of
all liberal education.” Th e reason, he explained (in the spirit of Austin), was
that international law is not “properly law” but instead is “a part of ethics.”
More surprisingly, Westlake, at Cambridge, expressed a similar opinion in
his 1888 inaugural lecture for the Whewell Chair. “International law is no
more a subject for specialists,” he maintained, “than home politics are.”
Th ere was accordingly some tendency in the English- speaking world for in-
ternational law to be taught in association with jurisprudence or legal phi-
losophy, in memory of the long association of international law with natural
law. In the United States, it was common for international law to be taught
(as at Columbia) in conjunction with such subjects as history, diplomacy, or
po liti cal science. To the present day, the title “international lawyer” is a
somewhat loose one, not necessarily confi ned to qualifi ed lawyers.
In Germany, there was not a single academic chair devoted wholly to in-
ternational law until 1912. Th is may have been a refl ection of a tendency of
German academics to see international law as part of public law in general
rather than as a distinct discipline— a state of aff airs that largely continues
to the present day. In 1914, an Institute for International Law was estab-
lished at the University of Kiel (Rachel’s old institution) by Th eodor Nie-
meyer. Under Niemeyer’s leadership, Kiel became the foremost center in
Germany of international law studies.


International Lawyers in Public Ser vice
For international-law scholars to put their knowledge to practical use was
nothing new. It has been observed that Grotius and Vattel both did diplo-
matic work and that G. F. von Martens was active in various forms of gov-
ernment ser vice. Th is public- spirited trend continued throughout the nine-
teenth century. Diplomatic ser vice remained a common outlet for legal

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