Dionisio Anzilotti

Dionisio Anzilotti (born  February 20, 1867 in Pescia , †  August 23, 1950 there ) was an Italian lawyer who was one of the leading international law experts in the first half of the 20th century and one of the most famous legal scholars in the history of his home country was. He worked from 1921 to 1946 as a judge at the Permanent International Court of Justice (StIGH) and was thus one of three judges who belonged to the court from its establishment until its dissolution. In addition, in 1923 with his dissenting minor opinion in the Wimbledon case, he was the only judge in the history of the StIGH who voted against the position of his home country in a decision.

Life

Dionisio Anzilotti was born in the Italian province of Pistoia in 1867 . He completed a law degree , which he completed in 1890 with a thesis in the field of private international law . He then worked as a lawyer in Florence , where he also taught civil law and international private law at the Royal Institute for Social Sciences from 1892 to 1902 . He then became a professor of international law and taught at the University of Palermo from 1902 to 1903 and at the University of Bologna from 1904 to 1911 , before moving to the University of Rome , where he worked until his retirement in 1937. In parallel to his university work, he was a member of a committee for legal issues (Consiglio del contenzioso diplomatico) of the Italian Foreign Ministry . In this capacity he was legal advisor to the Ministry on several cases before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague , of which he became a member in 1916. Three years later he was a member of his home country's delegation to the Paris Peace Conference , and in 1920 he became Under-Secretary General for Legal Affairs of the newly founded League of Nations . In this function, he was responsible, among other things, with other legal experts to develop the legal basis for the Permanent International Court of Justice (StIGH).

After the StIGH statute came into force in September 1921, Dionisio Anzilotti was elected by the bodies of the League of Nations as judge at the newly created Court of Justice, which he presided over from 1928 until the end of his first term in 1930. In the same year he was re-elected for a further nine years. During this time he was involved in all cases with which the StIGH was involved. Since the judges' elections planned for 1939 did not take place due to the beginning of the Second World War , he, like the other judges working at the StIGH at that time, formally remained in office until the court was dissolved in April 1946. However, the activities of the StIGH came to a standstill in 1940. In addition to the Spaniard Rafael Altamira y Crevea and the Cuban Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante y Sirvén , he was one of three judges who belonged to the Permanent International Court of Justice from its inception to its dissolution and the establishment of the International Court of Justice as its successor institution. He died in his native city of Pescia in 1950.

Legal philosophical views

The most famous work by Dionisio Anzilotti is his book “II diritto internazionale nei giudizi interni”, published in 1905, in which he dealt with the relationship between international law and national laws. In this regard, he represented the view of a dualism between the two areas of law, which goes back to the German lawyer Heinrich Triepel and which he expressed throughout his work in various statements and publications. According to this view, which also shaped the decisions of the Permanent International Court of Justice through the influence of Dionisio Anzilotti from the mid-1920s, international law exists independently and separately from the domestic law of each country. To justify this position, he stated that international law would be clearly differentiated from national legal norms, both in terms of origin and purpose, as well as in terms of the scope and scope of application and the legal subjects concerned .

His publications in the area of international law responsibility , in particular his work “Teoria generale della responsabilità dello Stato nel diritto internazionale”, published in 1902, are also considered fundamental contributions to the development of international law . In this regard, in contrast to later authors, he did not differentiate between the severity of violations of international law. In addition, in his view, responsibility under international law would only be limited to violations of treaties between two or more specific states and thus not extend to obligations towards the entire international community. This position resulted from his view that only the will of sovereign states is the basis of international obligations. Furthermore, in his view, responsibility under international law is only possible for state activities, but not for the actions of individual persons.

Dionisio Anzilotti saw separate votes in the decisions of the Permanent International Court of Justice not as a criticism of the decision of the court majority, but only as a representation of the opinion of the author and the arguments on which it is based. As with the comments of most of his colleagues, his dissenting views were shorter at the beginning of his term than in his later years at the Court. Although he was considered a legal positivist , he tried in 1937 with his remarks in the Lighthouses case in Crete and Samos to include the natural law concept of equity , i.e. the assessment of a legal case according to the natural feeling for justice , in his argumentation. With regard to the interpretation of international treaties , he took the position in several decisions that these should be interpreted literally in their respective context, provided that this would not lead to illogical or absurd conclusions.

Awards

Dionisio Anzilotti was an associate member from 1908 and a full member from 1921 of the Institut de Droit international , as its vice-president from 1932 to 1934. He was also admitted to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in 1926 and an honorary member of the American Society for International Law in 1928 and was a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences from 1936 and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences from 1938 .

Works (selection)

• La filosofia del diritto e la sociologia. Firenze 1892
• Studi critici di diritto internazionale. Rocca San Casciano 1898
• Teoria generale della responsabilità dello Stato nel diritto internazionale. Firenze 1902
• II diritto internazionale nei giudizi interni. Bologna 1905

literature

• José María Ruda : The Opinions of Judge Dionisio Anzilotti at the Permanent Court of International Justice. In: European Journal of International Law. 3 (1 )/1992. Oxford University Press & European Society of International Law, pp. 100-122, ISSN  0938-5428
• Giorgio Gaja : Positivism and Dualism in Dionisio Anzilotti. In: European Journal of International Law. 3 (1 )/1992. Oxford University Press & European Society of International Law, pp. 123-138, ISSN  0938-5428
• Pierre-Marie Dupuy : Dionisio Anzilotti and the Law of International Responsibility of States. In: European Journal of International Law. 3 (1 )/1992. Oxford University Press & European Society of International Law, pp. 139-148, ISSN  0938-5428
• Antonio Cassese : Realism v. Artificial Theoretical Constructs Remarks on Anzilotti's Theory of War. In: European Journal of International Law. 3 (1 )/1992. Oxford University Press & European Society of International Law, pp. 149-155, ISSN  0938-5428
• Antonio Tanca: Dionisio Anzilotti (1867–1950). Biographical Note with Bibliography. In: European Journal of International Law. 3 (1 )/1992. Oxford University Press & European Society of International Law, pp. 156-162, ISSN  0938-5428
• Georg Nolte : From Dionisio Anzilotti to Roberto Ago: The Classical International Law of State Responsibility and the Traditional Primacy of a Bilateral Conception of Inter-state Relations. In: European Journal of International Law. 13 (5) / 2002. Oxford University Press & European Society of International Law, pp. 1083-1098, ISSN  0938-5428
• Karl-Heinz Lingens: Dionisio Anzilotti. In Michael Stolleis (ed.): Juristen: Ein biographisches Lexikon; from antiquity to the 20th century. Second edition. Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-45957-9 , p. 38

Web links

• Société française pour le droit international: Dionisio Anzilotti (1867–1950) (French, with picture)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Members of the American Academy. Listed by election year, 1900-1949 ( PDF ). Retrieved September 27, 2015