George Grafton Wilson

George Grafton Wilson (born March 29, 1863 in Plainfield (Connecticut) , † April 30, 1951 in Cambridge (Massachusetts) ) was an American legal scholar . He worked from 1910 as a professor of international law at Harvard University and from 1933 to 1937 at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy .

Life

Wilson graduated from Brown University , where he in 1886 his Bachelor of Arts acquired, in 1888 his Master of Arts and in 1891 received his doctorate . In the years 1890 and 1891 he studied in Europe at the universities of Heidelberg , Berlin , Paris and Oxford .

In 1887 Wilson took over the post of principal in Groton, Connecticut and was principal of the high school in Rutland, Vermont from 1889 to 1890 . In 1891 he was appointed Associate Professor and in 1894 Professor of Social and Political Science at Brown University. In 1910 he was appointed professor of international law at Harvard University , where he had lectured since 1908, and from 1933 to 1937 he was professor of international law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy .

From 1900 to 1937 Wilson lectured on international law for naval officers at Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island . Every year he published a volume of the International Law Topics or International Law Situations , which were intended to provide assistance to naval officers in dealing with international law problems that they might encounter in the course of their service. This 7,000-page work, which Wilson published at Naval War College, is considered to be his most significant contribution to international law.

At the London Conference (1908-1909) he took part as a member of parliament and, together with Louis Renault, had a major influence on the London Declaration of the Law of the Sea . He was also an advisor to the American delegation at the 1922 Washington Naval Conference . Wilson was one of the founding fathers of the American Society for International Law (ASIL), as its Vice President in 1923. When the American Journal of International Law first appeared in 1907 , Wilson was one of its editors. From 1924 to 1943 he held the post of editor-in-chief, after which he was made chief editor-in-chief.

In addition, Wilson was from 1914 Fellow and 1939/1940 Vice President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and from 1910 member of the Institut de Droit international . In 1936 he was accepted into the American Philosophical Society . For his services he was awarded honorary doctorates from Brown University, the University of Vermont (1911), and the University of Hawaii (1937). ASIL appointed him honorary vice president in 1924.

Publications (selection)

• International law . With Fox Tucker . 1901.
• Insurgency and international maritime law . In: American Journal of International Law. 1907. American Society of International Law, pp. 46-60, ISSN  0002-9300 .
• Handbook of International Law . 1910.
• The Hague arbitration cases: compromis and awards with maps in cases decided under the provisions of the Hague Conventions of 1889 and 1907 for the pacific settlement of international disputes and texts of the Conventions. Ginn, Boston a.] 1915.
• The first year of the League of Nations; with the covenant of the League of Nations in an appendix . Little, Brown, Boston 1921.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Myers, Denys P. , In Memoriam: George Grafton Wilson, AJIL 1951, p. 549 (550).
2. ^ Member History: George G. Wilson. American Philosophical Society, accessed January 1, 2019 (date of death here May 1, 1951). 

literature

• Denys P. Myers: In Memoriam: George Grafton Wilson . In: American Journal of International Law. 1951. American Society of International Law, pp. 549-552, ISSN  0002-9300 .
• George A. Finch: George Grafton Wilson (1863-1951) . In: American Journal of International Law. 1951. American Society of International Law, pp. 526-528, ISSN  0002-9300 .