Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante y Sirvén

Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante y Sirvén, ca.1922

Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante y Sirvén (born April 13, 1865 in Havana ; † August 24, 1951 ibid) was a Cuban legal scholar . He represented his home country at the League of Nations and at international conferences such as the Second Hague Peace Conference and was a judge at the Permanent International Court of Justice from 1921 , of which he was a member until its dissolution after the end of the Second World War .

Life

Bustamante was born in Havana in 1865, the son of Manuel Sánchez de Bustamante, the Spanish Senator and Dean of the Medical Faculty of the University of Havana . He attended the Colegio de Belén in Havana, specializing for a jurisprudential studies at the universities of Havana and Madrid in the fields of international law and private international law to which he has published several studies. His first more extensive work he published in 1896 under the title "Tratado de Derecho Internacional Privado". At the age of 26, Bustamante was appointed professor of law at the University of Havana, at whose law faculty he was temporarily dean and later honorary dean. He also made a name for himself as a lawyer in the Cuban Bar Association and was elected to the Cuban Senate after Cuba's independence in 1902, to which he belonged until 1918.

Bustamante represented Cuba at the League of Nations , in 1907 at the Second Hague Peace Conference , at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 , and at numerous other international conferences. In 1908 he was appointed a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague and in 1921 a judge at the Permanent International Court of Justice . Along with the Italian Dionisio Anzilotti and the Spaniard Rafael Altamira y Crevea, he was one of three judges who belonged to the court until it was dissolved in April 1946. He also founded the Cuban Academy of Art and Literature, of which he was temporarily president, was a founding member of the American Institute for International Law and initiated the journal "Revista de Derecho Internacional", which he published in Havana. He also served as President of the Cuban Society for International Law, the International Academy for Comparative Law and gave numerous guest lectures, including at the Hague Academy for International Law . He died in his hometown in 1951.

Act

The most important work by Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante y Sirvén is the Código de Derecho Internacional Privado . In 1924, the American Institute for International Law convened a group of four experts to draft a code of private international law. Bustamante proved to be the leading figure in this circle and in 1925 published his draft for a Código de Derecho Internacional Privado . In 1928 the proposal was presented to the Sixth International Conference of American States in Havana and passed on February 13 under the name Código Bustamante .

Since then, fifteen Latin American states have ratified the code, nine of them with reservations regarding individual provisions. The Código Bustamante is considered a milestone in Latin American private international law. It is the attempt at a comprehensive international regulation of international private and procedural law and has shaped the scientific discussion to a considerable extent. However, critics judge the Código Bustamante as too theoretical and without any influence on practice.

Awards

Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante y Sirvén was an honorary doctor from Columbia University and the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima . He also belonged to the Institut de Droit international from 1895 and was an honorary member of the American Society for International Law from 1929 .

Works (selection)

• La segunda conferencia de la Paz: reunida en El Haya en 1907 . V. Suárez, Madrid 1908.
• La autarquia personal: estudio de derecho internacional privado . Havana 1914.
• Proyecto de codigo de derecho internacional privado . El Siglo, Havana 1925.
• El Tribunal permanente de justicia internacional . Ed. Reus, Madrid 1925.
• La nacionalidad y el domicilio: estudio de derecho internacional privado . El Siglo, Havana 1927.
• El Mar Territorial . 1930.
• Derecho Internacional Privado . 3 volumes, Havana 1931–1939.
• Derecho Internacional Público . 5 volumes, Havana 1931–1939.
• Derecho internacional aéreo: conferencias en la Academía Interamericana de Derecho Comparado e Internacional; durante su reunion de 1945 . Havana 1945.

literature

• Otto Schoenrich : Dr. Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante . In: American Journal of International Law. 1951. American Society of International Law, pp. 746-749, ISSN  0002-9300 .
• Jürgen Samtleben: International Private Law in Latin America - General Part. The Código Bustamante in theory and practice . Mohr, Tübingen 1979, ISBN 3-16-641392-8 .

Web links

• Photo on the League of Nations Photo Archive page