Arnold Ræstad

Arnold Ræstad ( Arnold Christopher Ræstad ), (born February 15, 1878 in Kristiania , † September 18, 1945 in Oslo) was a Norwegian lawyer and politician.

Family and education

His parents were the sales representative Christopher Andreas Ræstad (1847–1904) and his wife Maren Gjertine Monge. He married Märta Alexandra Maria Pauline Bratt, nee Freifrau Stjernstedt (1882-1969), daughter of the Swedish Lieutenant General Leonard Wilhelm Freiherr Stiernstedt (1841-1919) and his wife Marie Sophie Ciechanowiecka (1858-1911) in London on October 3, 1910.

Ræstad grew up in Kristiania, where he passed the examen artium in 1896. He then studied law and passed the state examination in 1900 with the best possible grade. In 1912 he received his doctorate in law with a dissertation on the history and theory of the sea area. The treatise served to support Norway's claim to Svalbard. Until the time after the Second World War , when the theory of the continental shelf prevailed, this work, which took off on the waters of the state, was a major work in Norwegian literature on international law.

Professional background

In 1910 Ræstad was briefly editor of foreign policy for the newspaper Tidens tegn (Signs of the Times). 1913–1918 he was a university scholarship holder for trade policy and international law. Until this time he was a freelance artist and lived on his own fortune, fees and the income from his books. Politically he was close to the Venstre and in the spring of 1921 he became Foreign Minister in the second Blehr government. He resigned after just eleven months because negotiations on a trade agreement for wine deliveries with Spain and Portugal failed. The Storting had previously decided on the state alcohol monopoly. But the wine suppliers insisted on purchasing the contractually agreed quantity of 500,000 liters of wine from Spain alone. The agreement that his successor reached was rejected by Storting, so that the Blehr government resigned. In connection with the failure of the negotiations, the editor of the Morgenbladet attacked him so severely that he brought a lawsuit against him. He lost it on the grounds that people in political life had to endure more severe attacks than private individuals. This judgment subsequently remained indicative.

In 1929 he was a Norwegian delegate to the League of Nations, but soon saw its limited possibilities. In his book Stat og nasjon i støpeskjeen (1940) (State and Nation in Transition) is an astute analysis of these ten years. He saw earlier than many others that Norway had to give up its policy of neutrality.

Ræstad became aware of the new means of communication early on. He was interested in automobiles, aviation, and radio, and was often consulted by institutions. He soon became indispensable for the radio company Kringkastingselskapet AS , as he, like no other, recognized the copyright and international law problems associated with radio broadcasting. He wrote treatises on these subjects and in 1933 became head of the newly founded state broadcasting corporation . In the years 1933–1935, however, he was sharply attacked in the press. He was accused of having enriched himself at the expense of the nationalization of the broadcasting company. As a result, he did not get a chance to fill the post of managing director in 1939. But in April 1940 he came back to the radio station. During the war from April to June 1940 he was head of the Free Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, then until 1945 in London and the USA. He was an important advisor to the Nygaardsvold government in exile . He also drafted the royal resolution to found the Nortraship shipping company . He started broadcasting Norwegian broadcasts in the United States and ran the Norwegian bank in London.

Selected works

• Kongens strømme. Historiske and folklore events undersøkelser stated sjøterritoriet . Dissertation 1912.
• Norges høihetsret over Spitsbergen i ældre tid. En folkeretshistorisk Fremdstilling. 1912
• Trade policy. 1914
• Norges handels- og skibsfartstraktater . 1914
• Korndyrkning and Korntold . 1915
• Dyrtid før og nu . 1916
• Krigs and Fred's problemer . 1916
• Truster and Karteller. En bok om private monopoly . 1916
• Greenland and Spitsbergen . 1923
• Hvad great he. Tolltariffkommisjonens mindretalls innstilling . 1924
• Italiensk fascisme. Indtryk and study . 1924
• Svalbardokkupasjonene. An undersøkelse om betingelsene for at kupasjoner av green on Svalbard shall be recognized as valid . 1925
• Voldgift tractater . 1927
• Hvalfangsten på det frie hav. Et fredningsspørsmål historisk and folkerettlig belyst . 1928
• Bernerkonvensjonen til vern for litterære verker, musikalske komposisjoner, visual arts, architecture, brukskunst, photographers and film . 1929
• Danmark, Norge og folkeretten . 1933
• Penger, valuta and gull . 1934
• Stat and nasjon i støpeskjeen. Undersøkninger for bedre å forstå Europe's crisis . 1940
• "La philosophie du droit international public", Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi Skr. II 1949 no. 2 (posthumously). 1949
• "Europe and the Atlantic world", Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi Skr. II 1958 no. 2, (posthumously). 1958

Remarks

1. ↑ Nordlands Avis of October 1, 1921 p. 2

literature

Hans Fredrik Dahl: Article “Arnold Ræstad” in Norsk biografisk leksikon , accessed on September 26, 2011.