Georges Scelle

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Georges Auguste Jean Joseph Scelle (born March  19, 1878 in Avranches , † January 8, 1961 in Paris ) was a French lawyer who worked in the field of international law . He worked at the University of Dijon from 1912 to 1932 and then at the University of Paris until 1948 and was a member of the United Nations International Law Commission from 1948 to 1960 . In addition, he served for many years at the Administrative Court of the International Labor Organizationas well as Secretary General and later as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hague Academy for International Law . The main focus of his work included the protection of minorities , international law of the sea , international labor law and the mandate of the League of Nations .

The central element of his sociologically shaped legal philosophy was the solidarity between individual people, which he regarded as the basis of law, society as well as the state and international order. Although his views on the conception of international law and international relations based on it lost importance after his death due to the rise of the school of thought of realism , he is one of the most influential international lawyers of his time alongside Hersch Lauterpacht . In recognition of his work, he was accepted into the Institut de Droit international and as an honorary member of the American Society for International Law and was appointed officer of the Legion of Honor .

Life

academic career

Front view of the main building of the former law and political science faculty of the University of Paris
The main building of the former Faculté de droit et des sciences économiques of the University of Paris, where Georges Scelle received his academic training and later worked as a professor himself

Georges Scelle was born in Avranches in Normandy in 1878, the son of a lawyer . After attending school in his hometown, he studied law and political science at the University of Paris and the École libre des sciences politiques , which he completed in 1906 with a dissertation supervised by Antoine Pillet . He then took part in the Agrégation , the entrance examination for a university teaching position in France , but without success . In the following years he worked in 1907 as secretary of the Brazilian delegation to the second Hague Peace Conference and the American delegation in the arbitration proceedings Orinoco Steamship Company between the USA and Venezuela before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague . In the far-reaching political conflicts in France that resulted from the Dreyfus Affair at the turn of the century and the following years , he was one of those who viewed the state critically with regard to the relationship between the state and the individual.

After he was professor of international law at the University of Sofia from 1908 to 1910 , he returned to France, where he taught at the law faculty in Dijon in 1910/1911 and in Lille in 1911/1912 . He passed the Agrégation in 1912 and then received a position at the University of Dijon , where he was responsible for the subjects of international law and the law of economic relations. With the beginning of the First World War and his draft for military service, he became legal advisor at the headquarters of the Eighth French Army. After the end of the war he resumed his work at the University of Dijon. In the post-war period, he participated in the public debate in France, among other things as a sharp critic of the occupation of the Ruhr .

In February 1925, François Albert, then Minister of Public Education, appointed him Professor of International Law at the University of Paris. However, since the faculty council had nominated the Catholic-conservative Louis Le Fur in the first place for this position , this approach met with almost unanimous rejection from both faculty members and conservative and monarchist students, including from Action française . During Scelle's first lecture on March 2, 1925, violent clashes broke out, and continued demonstrations in the following weeks led to the suspension of the dean of the faculty and its temporary closure. This dispute, known as the Scelle affair , which was primarily conducted over questions of university autonomy, ended with Scelle's resignation on April 11, 1925 and the appointment of the candidate selected by the faculty.

From 1929 to 1932, Georges Scelle taught in Dijon, where he received a full professorship in 1927, as well as at the University of Geneva and the Geneva University Institute for International Studies and in 1930 as part of the Davos University Course . In 1932 he accepted an offer at the University of Paris, where he worked from 1933 and retired from teaching in 1948 at the age of 70.

International activities

In the diplomatic field, Georges Scelle worked in the 1920s as an advisor to the French delegation to the Assembly of the League of Nations , at the last meeting of which he himself took part in 1946 as a delegate. From 1920 to 1958 he worked on the Committee of Experts on the Conventions of the International Labor Organization . During this time, he was also a member of the Administrative Court of the International Labor Organization and its predecessor institution, the Administrative Court of the League of Nations . In 1924/1925 he also served as a department head in the French Ministry of Labor. From 1950 he was a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. For the Hague Academy for International Law , where he also taught in 1933 and 1936, he served from 1935 to 1958, initially as the first secretary of the president and later as general secretary, and from 1958 until his death as a member of the board of trustees.

Before the International Court of Justice in 1948 he worked as an advisor to France in a case ( Conditions of Admission of a State to Membership in the United Nations ), in which the court was supposed to prepare an opinion on the requirements for a state to join the United Nations. In another case ( Asylum Case Colombia v. Peru ) the Colombian ambassador in Lima granted asylum to Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre , the founder of the Alianza Popular party wanted by the Peruvian authorities on charges of organizing an armed uprising Revolucionaria Americana , he acted as an advisor to Peru. From 1948 to 1960 he was a member of the International Law Commission of the United Nations and temporarily served as its President.

Georges Scelle was married and had no children. He died in Paris in 1961.

Act

Legal philosophical and political views

Front view of the League of Nations Palace in Geneva
He saw the emergence of the Geneva-based League of Nations, whose mandate was one of the focal points of the work of Georges Scelle, as a result of a federal development of the world community

In terms of his political positions, Georges Scelle was regarded as left-liberal to socialist and as a staunch supporter of an organization of the international order, as it was implemented in the form of the League of Nations and later the United Nations. He saw the First World War as the end of nation-state sovereignty thinking in the social and political sciences in favor of methodological individualism . In his opinion, only law is sovereign, and every subject who would consider himself sovereign would rise above law and deny it.

In his opinion, people as individuals are linked to one another in various forms and intensities through solidarity based on their needs , which he saw as the basis of social life. With regard to the concept of solidarity, he followed the sociological theory of Émile Durkheim , who differentiated a “mechanical solidarity” in segmentary societies, characterized by shared views and feelings, from a progressive “organic solidarity” characterized by the division of labor and cooperation, non-segmental societies. States , whose meaning he wanted to demystify, he viewed as purely practical as well as accidental and transitory results of such solidarity between individual people.

They would arise through the merging of smaller, cohesive communities such as families as well as local and regional structures to form larger units, but conversely, they could also disintegrate into smaller components. The same would also apply to supranational or international organizations and the “world community” ( Civitas maxima ) as well as to non-governmental institutions such as the labor movement or religious communities . In this regard, he saw the emergence of the League of Nations as the result of such a development in modern society towards a federal hierarchy. The legal philosophy of Georges Scelle was thus neither positivistic nor pragmatic, but was based on a theory of law that was perceived as idealistic and characterized by radical anthropocentrism and sociologically oriented .

In his opinion, the task of law is the balanced distribution of competences to individuals who have to exercise these competences in a manner oriented to the interests of the community. A central maxim of his legal philosophy was the principle that law is the connection between ethics and power . The positive law , which he, like the "objective law" (resulting from social needs droit objectif ) from the rational-based and immutable natural law demarcated, and the institutions whose enforcement he regarded it as an expression resulting from the individual solidarity social norms and as a necessary foundation of society. In this sense, he was also of the opinion that contracts would not create any law, but that they would rather have a proclamatory character.

The second criterion for defining the law alongside the principle of solidarity is the “urge to sanction”. In this sense, positive law resulted for him from the transfer of objective law into sanctioned individual competences. He saw no normative differences between national and international law or between private and public law . He considered the individual endowed with freedoms and fundamental rights to be the only “real” legal subject . The basis of international relations is ultimately not the coexistence of states, but the mutual penetration of peoples on the basis of individual interaction and mutual contacts across national borders. In this sense, international law serves to regulate relationships between individuals who would exercise the powers assigned to them on behalf of their respective states.

He saw the greatest weakness in the international order of his time as the lack of adequate legislative , judicial and executive institutions that could act on behalf of the international community. In his opinion, the tasks of such organs should, in the sense of a division of roles ( dédoublement fonctionnel ), be carried out by the representatives of the national executive structures of the states.

Life's work

Title page of Georges Scelle's dissertation
Title page of Georges Scelle's dissertation, published in 1906, a sociological-historical treatise on the Spanish slave trade

The international law issues to which Georges Scelle devoted himself included, for example, the protection of minorities, the law of the sea, international labor law and the mandate of the League of Nations. In the area of ​​international law of the sea, contrary to the state practice of dividing the sea into zones with different sovereignty and usage rights, he considered the oceans in their entirety, including the territorial waters , the continental shelf and the high seas, as part of the international common good ( domaine public international ). Further of his work concerned questions of international arbitration as well as the sovereignty and recognition of states . In this regard, he was a proponent of the declarative theory of state sovereignty, according to which the existence of a state is independent of recognition by other states if certain characteristics are present. In addition, from a sociological perspective, he also dealt with legal and economic history topics. His dissertation, published in two volumes under the title “La traite négrière aux Indes de Castille”, is considered a classic on the legal and economic aspects of the Spanish slave trade . His most important work was the treatise “Précis de droit des gens”, published in two volumes in the 1930s, which was still reprinted decades after his death.

For the world of thought expressed in his publications, in addition to his legal philosophical views, an individualistic and rationalistic attitude and a belief in progress through scientific knowledge were decisive. The linguistic and argumentative style of Georges Scelle's writings has been characterized as fascinating and elegant as well as intense and emphatic. His academic students included Guy Ladreit de Lacharrière , who served as a judge at the International Court of Justice from 1982 to 1987 , and René-Jean Dupuy , who was professor at the Collège de France from 1979 . With his views, Georges Scelle influenced the international law doctrine of his home country France just as strongly as did Hersch Lauterpacht in Great Britain or Dionisio Anzilotti in Italy . Alongside Lauterpacht, he is regarded as one of the most important international lawyers of his time. Especially after the end of the Second World War , among other things through the work of Hersch Lauterpacht, there was a strengthening of natural law and sociological positions in the field of international law, as they represented the core of the legal philosophy of Georges Scelle, compared to the previously prevailing legal positivist view.

Nevertheless, various developments, such as the intensification of the Cold War and the Middle East conflict as well as the disputes associated with decolonization , after his death led to the rise of an understanding of international law and international relations that was shaped by the school of realism . This conception, which gained wide acceptance mainly through the influence of Hans Morgenthau and Raymond Aron , directly opposed Scelle's positions, especially with regard to the sovereignty thinking and the role of federalism . His view that social reality was shaped by solidarity also lost its relevance due to the international conflicts in the time after his death. Likewise, his ideas on the exclusive role of individuals as legal subjects of international law could not prevail against the prevailing view of states as primary subjects under international law. The assumption of tasks of the international legal order by national organs, which he called dédoublement fonctionnel , also decreased in importance with the increasing institutionalization of the international community, but among other things plays a role in the implementation of the supranational law of the European Union by its member states, for example in realizing European citizenship through national citizenship law .

Awards and recognition

Georges Scelle was an associate member from 1929 and a full member from 1947 of the Institut de Droit international , for which he also served as vice-president in 1948. In 1950 he was made an honorary member of the American Society for International Law . For his services, he was also awarded honorary doctorates from the universities in Brussels and Geneva. He was also bearer of the Croix de guerre 1914-1918 , officer of the Legion of Honor , as well as bearer of the Grand Cross of the Order El Sol del Perú , Commander of the Order de Isabel la Católica and the Order of Orange-Nassau and Knight of the Bulgarian Order of Civil Merit .

A commemorative publication in honor of Georges Scelle appeared in 1949/1950 under the title “La technique et les Principes du droit public”. The Place Georges Scelle , where the school he graduated from in his native Avranches is located, as well as the Prix ​​Georges Scelle awarded by the University of Paris since 1963 are named after him . In the first issue of the European Journal of International Law in 1990, a collection of several articles about his life and work appeared under the heading “The European Tradition in International Law”. At the University of Dijon in 2011, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death, a conference entitled “L'actualité de Georges Scelle” was held.

Works (selection)

  • La traite négrière aux Indes de Castille. Paris 1906
  • La morale des traités de paix. Paris 1920
  • La Société des Nations, sa nécessité, son but, ses origines, son organization. Dijon 1922 (second edition, Paris 1924)
  • Le droit ouvrier. Paris 1922, 1929
  • Précis de droit des gens. Principes et systematic. Two volumes. Paris, 1932 and 1934
  • Theory juridique de la revision des traités. Paris 1936
  • Manuel élémentaire de droit international public. Paris 1943
  • Droit international public. Paris 1934
  • Manuel de droit international public. Paris 1948

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Unless otherwise stated, the biographical information is taken from the following article: Antonio Tanca, EJIL 1/1990, pp. 240–249 (see literature). In some contemporary publications, different dates can be found for the various stages of his academic career. This applies to the following works, among others:
    • Noemie Noire Oursel: Nouvelle biography normande. Paris 1886–1912f
    • Qui êtes-vous? Annuaire des contemporains. Notices biographiques. Paris 1924
    • Henri Temerson: Biographies des principales personnalités françaises décédées au cours de l'année 1961. Paris 1962
    • Dictionnaire biographique français contemporain. Second edition. Paris 1954/1955
  2. ↑ a b c d e Who’s who in France 1959−1960: Dictionnaire biographique paraissant tous les deux ans (France - Communautés et Français de l'Étranger). Fourth edition. J. Lafitte, Paris 1959
  3. ^ A b c d e Henri Temerson: Biographies des principales personnalités françaises décédées au cours de l'année 1961. Paris 1962
  4. ↑ a b Martti Koskenniemi, Cambridge 2004, footnote 279 on p. 327 (see literature)
  5. ↑ a b c d e Oliver Diggelmann, Oxford 2012, pp. 1162/1163 (see literature)
  6. ↑ a b L'affaire Scelle. In: Martti Koskenniemi, Cambridge 2004, p. 316/317 (see literature)
  7. ^ Mark Edelman Boren: Student Resistance: A History of the Unruly Subject. Routledge, New York 2001, ISBN 0-415-92623-8 , p. 91
  8. ^ Sorbonne Professor Resign's position. In: St. Petersburg Times . Edition of April 12, 1925, p. 16
  9. ↑ The information on his legal philosophical and political positions comes from the following book, unless otherwise stated: Martti Koskenniemi, Cambridge 2004, pp. 327–338 (see literature)
  10. ↑ a b c d e f Hubert Thierry: The Thought of Georges Scelle. In: European Journal of International Law . 1/1990. Oxford University Press & European Society of International Law, pp. 193-209, ISSN  0938-5428
  11. ↑ Oliver Diggelmann, Oxford 2012, pp. 1164/1165 (see literature)
  12. ↑ Georges Scelle (1878–1961). In: Janne Elisabeth Nijman: The Concept Of International Legal Personality: An Inquiry Into The History And Theory Of International Law. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2004, ISBN 9-06-704183-1 , pp. 192-242
  13. ↑ Peter Becker, Reiner Braun, Dieter Deiseroth: Peace through law? Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 3-8305-1721-1 , p. 153
  14. ^ Jean D'Aspremont: Formalism and the Sources of International Law: A Theory of the Ascertainment of Legal Rules. Series: Oxford Monographs in International Law. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York 2011, ISBN 0-19-969631-4 , p. 99
  15. ^ Influence of the teachings of Georges Scelle. In: Rudolf Meyer: Bona fides and lex mercatoria in the European legal tradition. Series: Sources and research on law and its history. Volume 5. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 1994, ISBN 3-89244-072-7 , pp. 121-123
  16. ↑ Oliver Diggelmann, Oxford 2012, pp. 1163/1164 (see literature)
  17. ^ A b Antonio Cassese : Remarks on Scelle's Theory of “Role Splitting” (dédoublement fonctionnel) in International Law. In: European Journal of International Law . 1/1990. Oxford University Press & European Society of International Law, pp. 210-231, ISSN  0938-5428
  18. ^ The Concept of Domaine Public International. Argument by Georges Scelle. In: Yoshifumi Tanaka: A Dual Approach to Ocean Governance: The Cases of Zonal and Integrated Management in International Law of the Sea. Series: Ashgate International Law Series. Ashgate Publishing, Farnham and Burlington 2008, ISBN 0-7546-7170-4 , pp. 9-11
  19. ↑ Martti Koskenniemi, Cambridge 2004, pp. 327/328 (see literature)
  20. ^ Recognition, Constitutive and Declaratory Theories of. In: Boleslaw Adam Boczek: International Law: A Dictionary. Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2005, ISBN 0-8108-5078-8 , pp. 101/102
  21. ^ Leslie Bethell: The Cambridge History of Latin America. Fourth volume. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, ISBN 0-521-23223-6 , p. 603
  22. ↑ Nicholas Kasirer: A Reading of Georges Scelle's Précis de droit des gens. In: Charles B. Bourne: Canadian Yearbook of International Law. 24/1986. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver 1986, ISBN 0-7748-0281-2 , pp. 372-385
  23. ↑ Angelika Nußberger : The international law: history, institutions, perspectives. Series: Beck's series. Volume 2478. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 3-406-56278-7 , p. 33
  24. ↑ Martti Koskenniemi: International Law as Political Theology: How To Read the Nomos der Erde? In: Constellations. An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory. 11 (4) / 2004. Blackwell Publishing, pp. 492-511, ISSN  1351-0487 ; Republication under the same title in: Forum historiae iuris. Article of March 31, 2006. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, ISSN  1860-5605 ( available online )
  25. ^ Charles Boasson, Peter Van den Dungen: In Search of Peace Research. Macmillan, London 1991, ISBN 0-333-53520-0 , p. 182
  26. ↑ Ulrich Scheuner : Natural law currents in today's international law. In: Journal for Foreign Public Law and International Law . 13/1950. Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, pp. 556–614, ISSN  0044-2348
  27. ^ Andreas Müller: On the primacy of the legal person in international law - At the same time a contribution to the “rehabilitation” of the natural person as a subject of international law. In: Christian Kanzian (Hrsg.), Josef Quitterer (Hrsg.), Edmund Runggaldier (Hrsg.): Personen. An interdisciplinary dialogue. Series: Contributions of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. Volume X. Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, Kirchberg am Wechsel 2002, pp. 176-178, ISSN  1022-3398
  28. ^ Helmut Philipp Aust : Complicity and the Law of State Responsibility. Series: Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York 2011, ISBN 1-107-01072-1 , p. 60
  29. ↑ The dual function of the legal enforcement bodies of the member states. In: Stefan Kadelbach: General administrative law under European influence. Series: Jus publicum. Volume 36. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2001, ISBN 3-16-147024-9 , pp. 15-17
  30. ↑ The coupling of federal to member nationality as a “dédoublement fonctionnel” under the law of membership. In: Christoph Schönberger: Union Citizens: Europe's Federal Citizenship in a Comparative Perspective. Series: Jus publicum. Volume 145. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 3-16-148837-7 , pp. 188-191
  31. ^ Proceedings of the American Society of International Law. 56/1962. American Society of International Law, p. 65
  32. ↑ Qui êtes-vous? Annuaire des contemporains. Notices biographiques. Luffy, Paris 1924
  33. ^ Charles Rousseau: La Technique et les Principes du droit public. Études en l'honneur de Georges Scelle. Two volumes. Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence, Paris 1949/1950
  34. ^ See conference proceedings: Charalambos Apostolidis (ed.), Hélène Tourard (ed.): Actualité de Georges Scelle. Éditions universitaires de Dijon, Dijon 2013, ISBN 978-2-36441-065-7

literature

  • Antonio Tanca: Georges Scelle (1878–1961). Biographical Note With Bibliography. In: European Journal of International Law . 1/1990. Oxford University Press & European Society of International Law, pp. 240-249, ISSN  0938-5428
  • Georges Berlia: In memoriam: Georges Scelle (1878–1961). In: Annuaire Français de Droit International. 6/1960. Center national de la recherche scientifique, pp. 3–5, ISSN  0066-3085
  • The Solidarity Of Fact: Georges Scelle. In: Martti Koskenniemi : The Gentle Civilizer of Nations. The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870-1960. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2004, ISBN 0-521-54809-8 , pp. 327-338
  • Manfred Lachs : The Teacher in International Law: Teachings and Teaching. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague 1982, ISBN 90-247-2566-6 , pp. 97-99
  • Oliver Diggelmann : Georges Scelle (1878–1961). In: Bardo Fassbender (Ed.), Anne Peters (Ed.): The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-959975-2 , pp. 1162-1166

Further publications

  • Charles Rousseau: Georges Scelle (1878–1961). In: Revue Générale de Droit International Public. Editions A. Pedone, Paris 1961, pp. 5-19
  • Hans Kelsen , Kurt Ringhofer , Robert Walter : Disputes on pure legal theory: Critical comments on Georges Scelle and Michel Virally. Springer-Verlag, Vienna and New York 1987, ISBN 0-387-81950-9
  • Oliver Diggelmann : Beginnings of the Sociology of International Law: The Concepts of International Law by Max Huber and Georges Scelle in Comparison. Schulthess Legal Media, Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-7255-4020-9
  • Anja Wüst: The international law work of Georges Scelle in France between the wars. Series: Studies on the History of International Law. Volume 13. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2007, ISBN 3-8329-2688-7
  • Eric De Payen: Georges Scelle (1878–1964): Un penseur français de la liberté individual international. Editions universitaires europeennes, Saarbrücken 2011, ISBN 6-13-156881-2
  • Charalambos Apostolidis (ed.), Hélène Tourard (ed.): Actualité de Georges Scelle. Éditions universitaires de Dijon, Dijon 2013, ISBN 978-2-36441-065-7

Web links


This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on December 15, 2011 .
personal data
SURNAME Scelle, Georges
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Scelle, Georges Auguste Jean Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French legal scholar, member of the United Nations Commission on International Law
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Avranches
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 1961
Place of death Paris