Helge Klæstad

Helge Klæstad (born  December 6, 1885 in Levanger , †  May 23, 1965 in Oslo ) was a Norwegian lawyer . In the 1920s, he served as an arbitrator in several international disputes. From 1931 to 1946 he worked as a judge at the Supreme Court of Norway and from 1946 to 1961 at the International Court of Justice in The Hague , including from 1958 until the end of his term as president of the court.

Life

Helge Klæstad was born in Levanger in 1881 and, after graduating from school in 1903 to 1908, studied law at the University of Oslo , where he also received his doctorate in 1920 . After his studies he worked as an administrative lawyer in Fosen and from 1910 to 1912 in Trondheim before moving to the Ministry of Justice and later to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

From 1920 he worked as a delegate in his home country at various international conferences and bilateral negotiations as well as in the field of international arbitration , in which he distinguished himself as an arbitrator in international legal disputes and from 1929 as a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration . From 1919 to 1926 he was an arbitrator between Germany and the British Empire for arbitration issues relating to the Treaty of Versailles and from 1925 President of the Anglo-German Court of Arbitration in London , from 1927 to 1931 an arbitrator between Austria and the British Empire and from 1929 to 1931 an arbitrator between Hungary and the British Empire. In 1930 he became a member of the Standing Conciliation and Arbitration Commission between Norway and Poland and in 1931 a judge in arbitration proceedings between Germany and Luxembourg .

In 1931 he became a judge at the Supreme Court of Norway , where he served until 1946. In the same year he was elected to the newly established International Court of Justice in The Hague for a term of six years . When he was re-elected in 1952 for a further nine years, he prevailed in the decisive election round against the Belgian candidate Charles De Visscher , who had also been a member of the court since 1946. From 1958 until the end of his term in office in 1961, Helge Klæstad was President of the Court. During his work at the International Court of Justice wrote Helge Klæstad three separate Opinions (of the court majority dissent), another five dissenting votes and two explanations.

Helge Klæstad died in Oslo in 1965 .

literature

• Lester Bernhardt Orfield, Benjamin F. Boyer: The Growth of Scandinavian Law. Lawbook Exchange, Union NJ 2002, ISBN 1-58477-180-1 , pp. 160/161
• Helge Klaestad. In: Arthur Eyffinger, Arthur Witteveen, Mohammed Bedjaoui : La Cour internationale de Justice 1946–1996. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague and London 1999, ISBN 90-411-0468-2 , p. 297
• Helge Klæstad in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)