John Bassett Moore

John Bassett Moore

John Bassett Moore (born  December 3, 1860 in Smyrna , Delaware , †  November 12, 1947 in New York City ) was an American lawyer and diplomat . From 1891 to 1924 he served as a professor at Columbia University and from 1922 to 1928 as a judge at the Permanent International Court of Justice . He represented the United States several times at international conferences as well as in negotiations and international arbitration tribunals and acted as legal advisor to four US presidents . His best-known publication is the work Digest of International Law , which appeared in eight volumes in 1906 .

Life

Moore was born in 1860 in Smyrna and received after 1877 to 1880 at the University of Virginia had studied in 1883 in Delaware admitted to the lawyer . In the years 1885/1886 he acted as Law Clerk (legal assistant) to Thomas F. Bayard in the State Department of the United States , in which he then worked until 1891 as Secretary of State. In the same year he took over the Hamilton Fish Professorship for international law and diplomacy at Columbia University , which he held until 1924. At the same time he worked for the Foreign Ministry. In 1898 he was the 23rd Assistant Secretary of State at the time of William McKinley under Secretary of State William R. Day .

In 1901 he also taught at the United States Naval War College . He has also represented the United States on numerous occasions at international conferences as well as in negotiations and arbitrations. In 1914 he served as president of the American Political Science Association . From 1912 to 1938 he was a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague , and after the end of the First World War he was also the first judge from the USA to be a member of the newly established Permanent International Court of Justice . In 1928 he retired from his position as a judge in order to devote himself to scientific work.

Particularly outstanding were Moore's contributions in the area of ​​the chronic representation of international law, international arbitration and diplomacy. After completing his main work, the Digest of International Law , which appeared in eight volumes in 1906 , he suffered a nervous breakdown due to the stress associated with it . He used the following two years with extensive trips to Europe and the Middle East for recreation. He served as legal advisor to US Presidents Grover Cleveland , William McKinley , Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson during his career , and was a strong opponent of war and the use of military force, as well as an advocate of neutrality . He was critical of the League of Nations , founded after the First World War , as, in his opinion, it would only serve to maintain the status quo in international relations.

Moore was married from 1890 and has three daughters. He died in New York in 1947 and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx , New York . His estate is kept in the Library of Congress .

Honors

Moore was a member of the Institut de Droit international from 1891 and was made honorary vice-president of the American Society for International Law , to which he had belonged since its inception. A number of colleges, including George Washington University in 1899 , awarded him an honorary doctorate . In 1907 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society and in 1919 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

A school is named after him in his hometown of Smyrna. He was also featured on a Prominent Americans stamp issued by the United States Postal Service between 1965 and 1978 .

Works (selection)

• A Treatise on Extradition and Interstate Rendition. Two volumes. Boston 1891
• History and Digest of International Arbitrations to Which The United States Has Been a Party. Six volumes. Washington 1898
• Digest of International Law As Embodied In Diplomatic Discussions, Treaties And Other International Agreements. Eight volumes. Washington 1906
• International Law And Some Current Illusions, And Other Essays. New York 1924
• International Adjudications, Ancient and Modern. Eight volumes. New York, 1929-1937
• The Collected Papers of John Bassett Moore. Seven volumes. New Haven 1944

literature

• Richard Megargee: Moore, John Bassett. In: Warren F. Kuehl (Ed.): Biographical Dictionary of Internationalists. Greenwood Press, Westport 1983, ISBN 0-313-22129-4 , pp. 508-511
• Moore, John Bassett 1860-1947. In: The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography. Houghton Mifflin, Boston 2003, ISBN 0-618-25210-X , p. 1080
• Manfred Lachs : The Teacher in International Law: Teachings and Teaching. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague 1982, ISBN 90-247-2566-6 , pp. 99-101
• John Bassett Moore. Obituary in: Political Science Quarterly. 63 (1) / 1948. Academy of Political Science, pp. 159/160, ISSN  0032-3195
• Edwin Borchard: John Bassett Moore. Obituary in: American Journal of International Law . 42 (1) / 1948. American Society of International Law, pp. 98-101, ISSN  0002-9300

Individual evidence

1. ^ Member History: John B. Moore. American Philosophical Society, accessed December 17, 2018 .