Cecil Hurst

Cecil Hurst at the Permanent International Court of Justice (1945)

Sir Cecil James Barrington Hurst KCB , GCMG , KC (born  October 28, 1870 in Horsham , †  March 27, 1963 ibid) was a British lawyer . He worked from 1929 to 1946 as a judge at the Permanent International Court of Justice in The Hague , including from 1934 to 1936 as President of the Court, and from January 1944 to January 1945 as Chairman of the United Nations War Crimes Commission .

Life

Cecil Hurst was 1870 in Horsham born and graduated in law at Trinity College of the University of Cambridge , which he in 1892 with the LL.B. completed. A year later he was admitted to the bar . In 1902 he began a career in the UK Foreign Office as Assistant Legal Adviser , and in 1918 he became Principal Legal Adviser . During this time he was among other things a delegate from his home country to the second Hague Peace Conference in 1907 and a year later to the London Conference , at which the London Declaration of the Law of the Sea was drawn up. After the end of the First World War , he took part in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 .

In the 1920s he represented Great Britain several times before the newly established Permanent International Court of Justice (StIGH). In 1929 he was appointed a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and elected as a judge at the StIGH. He was a member of the Tribunal until its dissolution in April 1946. During this time he served as President from 1934 to 1936 and then until 1945 as Vice-President of the Court. In January 1944 he was elected chairman of the United Nations War Crimes Commission after he had already chaired three unofficial meetings of the commission between October 1943 and January 1944. He retired from this position in January 1945 for health reasons.

Cecil Hurst died in his hometown in 1963.

Awards

Cecil Hurst was from 1907 Commander (CB) and from 1920 Knight Commander (KCB) of the Order of the Bath and from 1924 Knight Commander (KCMG) and from 1926 Knight Grand Cross (GCMG) of the Order of St. Michael and St. George . In 1913 he was appointed King's Counsel . The University of Cambridge awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1928 . He was made an honorary member of the American Society for International Law in 1951.

Works (selection)

• The British Year Book of International Law. London 1925 (as editor)
• A Plea for the Codification of International Law on New Lines. In: Transactions of the Grotius Society. 32/1946. Oxford University Press, pp. 135-153
• International Law: The Collected Papers of Sir Cecil Hurst. London 1950

literature

• Biographical Notes concerning the Judges. Sir Cecil J.B. Hurst. In: Sixth Annual Report of the Permanent Court of International Justice. AW Sijthoff's Publishing, Leiden 1930, pp. 20/21.
• Charles De Visscher , Kenneth Carpmael, C. John Colombo: Sir Cecil Hurst: Two Tributes. In: International and Comparative Law Quarterly. 13 (1 )/1964. Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-5.