The Hague Academy of International Law

The academy is located in the Peace Palace in The Hague in the Netherlands

The Hague Academy of International Law (Template:Lang-fr) is a center for high-level education in both public and private international law housed in the Peace Palace in The Hague, The Netherlands. Courses are taught in English and French and, except for External Programme Courses, are held in the Peace Palace.

History

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tobias Asser (1838–1913)

Since its creation in 1923, The Hague Academy of International Law has occupied premises at the Peace Palace, alongside the highest judicial institutions such as the International Court of Justice and the Bureau of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. In the context of the movement for the establishment of peace through law, the idea of creating an Academy of International Law was mooted at the Hague Conference in 1907 (having previously been voiced by the Institut de droit international as early as 1873). The Dutch Government took up the idea, and the International Law Association in turn examined the question. The Dutch Lawyer Tobias M. C. Asser proposed a plan that envisaged more or less what the Academy was to become, with courses held from July to October. Asser received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1911 and contributed a part of the prize money to the Academy; and the Carnegie Endowment for Peace provided a valuable contribution to get it started. The inauguration of the Academy was planned for October 1914. But World War I broke out, and preparations could not be resumed until 1921. When the Summer Courses started on 14 July 1923, at the Peace Palace in The Hague, 353 students originating from 31 countries attended, of whom 35 were women.

Today, the Academy is a centre for research and teaching in public and private international law, with the aim of further scientific and advanced studies of the legal aspects of international relations. The UN General Assembly regularly refers to the “valuable contribution” that the Academy “continues to make to the United Nations Program of Assistance in the Teaching, Study, Dissemination and Wider Appreciation of International Law”. The Academy was awarded the Wateler Peace Prize (1936, 1950), the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize (1992), the order of Rio Branco, Brazil (1999), and the Medal of the Royal Institute of European Studies, Spain (2000). The Academy has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 34 times between 1915 and 1956. The Academy is part of the Hague Academic Coalition.

The structure of the Academy

The Curatorium

The Academy’s academic activities and policies are defined by the Curatorium. It consists of members of different nationalities, who are well-known in the academic or diplomatic worlds, or practising international lawyers. The president of the Curatorium is a distinguished jurist who generally has extensive experience of international and diplomatic life. Among the most recent presidents have been Roberto Ago, Nicolas Valticos and Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

President

Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Former Secretary-General of the United Nations;

Vice-President

Erik Jayme, Professor Emeritus at the Institute for Foreign and International Private and Commercial Law, Heidelberg;

Members

Geneviève Bastid-Burdeau, Professor at the University Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne);

Antônio Augusto Cançado-Trindade, Judge at the International Court of Justice and former President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights;

Juan-Antonio Carrillo-Salcedo, Professor Emeritus at the University of Seville and former Judge at the European Court of Human Rights;

James Crawford, Whewell Professor of International Law, Cambridge;

Florentino P. Feliciano, former Chairman, Appellate Body, WTO; former Senior Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the Philippines;

Diego P. Fernandez Arroyo, Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid; Honorary Professor of the National University of Córdoba, Professor at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris;

Beat Hess, group legal director, member of the Executive Committee, Royal Dutch Shell plc;

Maarit Jänterä-Jareborg, Professor at the Faculty of Law of Uppsala University;

Djamchid Momtaz, Professor at the University of Teheran;

Shinya Murase, Professor at Sophia University, Tokyo; Member of the United Nations International Law Commission;

Raymond Ranjeva, Former Vice-President of the International Court of Justice;

Linos-Alexander Sicilianos, Professor at the University of Athens;

A. (Teun) V.M. Struycken, Professor emeritus at the Catholic University of Nijmegen; President of the Netherlands Standing Government Committee on Private International Law;

Tullio Treves, Professor at the University of Milan, Judge to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea;

Peter D. Trooboff, Senior Counsel, Covington & Burling LLP, Washington, D.C.; Member of the District of Columbia and New York Bars;

Hanqin Xue, Judge at the International Court of Justice;

Secretary General

Yves Daudet, Professor emeritus at the University Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne).

The Administrative Council

The Administrative Council is in charge of the financial and material aspects of the Academy’s operations. This is a Dutch body whose members are of Dutch nationality, and whose president is always a leading personality. The administrative Council has close ties with the Dutch Carnegie Foundation which owns and manages the Peace Palace.

Summer Courses

The Summer Courses of the Academy are held in July (Public International Law) and August (Private International Law); each session lasts three weeks. The Academy is not a University: it does not have a permanent teaching staff, but its scientific body, the Curatorium, freely calls upon academics, practitioners, diplomats, and other personalities from all over the world whom it considers qualified to give courses, in English or French (with simultaneous interpretation). These courses are given in the form of a series of lectures, on general or special subjects. In principle, the courses are then published in the Collected Courses of the Academy of International Law, which now run to more than 340 volumes and are certainly the most important encyclopædic publication on private and public international law.

The Summer programme - conducted at the level of postgraduate in international law - is directed to advanced students and practitioners seeking a deeper understanding of international law, public or private. The summer courses are open to candidates who have completed at least four years of studying at university, including subjects of international law, and who can prove to the Curatorium that they possess a sufficient knowledge of the subject; to candidates holding a 3-year law degree at the opening of the session of the Academy. All candidates must master one of the two working languages (French or English). A merit-based scholarship program allows approximately 20% of the students to receive assistance from public and private funding sources. The age limit to benefit from a scholarship is 30 years (the candidate must be younger than 30 on January 1st of the year during which the courses will take place). Each year, the attendees represent representing between 80 and 100 nationalities.

Curriculum

The Hague Academy is famous primarily for the yearly summer course that if offers in public and private international law. The course comprises six weeks of teaching - the first three weeks devoted to private international law and the next three to public international law. The course is in the month of July every year and attracts law students of the undergraduate level from around the world (with four years of studies or more in law, including international law). Lecturers with strong academic leanings come from various fronts, mostly from the academia, international institutions, government or from law practice, giving lectures on general as well as highly specialized fields of private and public law. The lectures are published by the Academy on a yearly basis as Recueil des Cours de l'Académie de Droit International de La Haye (Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law) and have formed an invaluable part of the existing literature in international law. The continuing significance of the Academy is due not only to bringing the best in the field to teach, but also in making their research available as part of the larger corpus of scholarly writings.

The Hague Academy also awards a very highly specialized Diploma that is a rare distinction for one to achieve, as evidenced by the small number of Diplomas the Academy has granted over more than 56 years since instituting it. The Diploma is awarded following comprehensive written and oral examinations that may relate to any topic in public or private international law. It requires serious scholarship and sets exacting standards for candidates.

External Programme

In 1969, the Academy created its External Programme which sends a team of Academy professors to locations in Africa, Latin America, and Asia for a two week period. The Programme is designed to teach young professors of international law and civil servants from the host country on specific topics of regional interest.

List of External Programme sessions and host locations

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See also

• List of Hague Academy of International Law people

External links

• Hague Academy of International Law website
• Association of Attendees and Alumni of the Hague Academy of International Law