Bernhard Graefrath

Bernhard Graefrath (born  February 12, 1928 in Berlin ; †  January 3, 2006 in Michaelsdorf ) was a German lawyer who was one of the leading legal scholars in the field of international law in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) . From 1963 to 1982 he was Professor of International Law at the Humboldt University in Berlin and then until 1991 as Head of International Law at the Institute for Theory of State and Law of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR . From 1986 to 1991 he was a member of the United Nations International Law Commission .

Life

Bernhard Graefrath was born in Berlin in 1928 and completed after the end of World War II, a people's judge course and then at the Humboldt University of Berlin to study law , which he in 1951 with the promotional statements. From 1946 he belonged to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). In 1953/1954 he was the main consultant and department head in the State Secretariat for higher education and technical schools, responsible for legal training. He then became a lecturer and, after his habilitation in 1963, professor of international law at the law section of the Humboldt University. From 1964 to 1966 he worked as dean of the law faculty of the university and from 1969 to 1973 and from 1980 to 1982 as head of international law. In 1984 he also lectured at the Hague Academy for International Law .

From 1973 he represented the GDR at various international conferences and institutions in the field of international law and human rights . From 1974 to 1977 he took part in the sessions of the diplomatic conference at which the first two additional protocols of 1977 to the Geneva Conventions were drawn up, and from 1973 to 1978 he was a member of the GDR delegation at the sessions of the UN General Assembly . From 1977 to 1986 he was a member of the UN Human Rights Committee . He then worked from 1986 to 1991, as the only lawyer in the history of the GDR, in the International Law Commission of the United Nations . In 1983 he moved from Humboldt University to the Institute for Theory of State and Law at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR , where he was Professor and Head of International Law until 1991 and as Deputy Chairman of the Council for Political and Legal Research of the GDR worked. In 1992 he took early retirement. He died in Michaelsdorf in 2006.

Publications (selection)

• The United Nations and human rights. Berlin 1956
• Responsibility of states under international law. Berlin 1977 (as co-author)
• Problems of international law. Berlin 1985 (as editor)
• Human rights and international cooperation. Berlin 1988
• The war and the silence of the UN. In: Lower your arms! To the NATO war against Yugoslavia. (Ed.) Dresdener Studiengemeinschaft Sicherheitsppolitik (DSS) e. V: DSS working papers , Dresden 1999, issue 47, pp. 49–51. urn : nbn: de: bsz: 14-qucosa2-324781

literature

• Jan Wielgohs:  Graefrath, Bernhard . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 , p. 318.
• Biographical Note: Bernhard Graefrath. In: Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law. Bans 185. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague 1984, ISBN 978-9-02-473166-4 , pp. 15-18

Web links

• Literature by and about Bernhard Graefrath in the catalog of the German National Library