José Gustavo Guerrero

José Gustavo Guerrero (born June 26, 1876 in San Salvador , † October 25, 1958 in Nice ) was a lawyer and diplomat from El Salvador . In addition to high-ranking diplomatic positions as a representative of his home country in various countries and with the League of Nations , he was El Salvador's Foreign Minister in 1927 and 1928 . From 1937 to 1946 he served as the last President of the Permanent International Court of Justice and from 1946 to 1949 as the first President of the newly established International Court of Justice .

Life

José Gustavo Guerrero (center) during his time at the ICJ (1948)

José Gustavo Guerrero was born in San Salvador in 1876 . After studying in his hometown as well as in Guatemala City and receiving his doctorate in 1898, he was initially Chargé d'affaires ( chargé d'affaires ) of his country in Washington from 1908 and from 1912 Minister Plenipotentiary (authorized envoy) in Rome , Madrid , Paris and the Vatican . In 1926 he was appointed a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague . A year later he was called back to his home country, where he served as Foreign Minister and Minister for Justice and Education in 1927 and 1928 . He headed the delegations of his home country at several meetings of the League of Nations and was president of its general assembly in 1929 and 1930.

From 1931 he was a judge at the Permanent International Court of Justice (StIGH) in The Hague . From his election until 1936 he was Vice President and from 1937 until the court was dissolved in April 1946 as its last President. He was then elected to its successor institution, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and served as its first president from 1946 to 1949. This made him the only judge to preside over both courts. Besides him, only the Belgian lawyer Charles De Visscher belonged to both the StIGH and the IGH. After the end of his time as President of the ICJ, he served as Vice-President until 1955 and remained as a judge at the International Court of Justice until his death in 1958 .

José Gustavo Guerrero was made an honorary member of the American Society for International Law in 1949 and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in 1948 and 1949 . He died in Nice in 1958 .

literature

• Biographical Notes concerning the Judges and Deputy-Judges. M. J. Gustave Guerrero, Vice-President. In: Seventh Annual Report of the Permanent Court of International Justice. AW Sijthoff's Publishing, Leiden 1931, pp. 22/23
• José Gustavo Guerrero. In: Arthur Eyffinger, Arthur Witteveen, Mohammed Bedjaoui : La Cour internationale de Justice 1946–1996. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague and London 1999, ISBN 9-04-110468-2 , p. 287

Web links

• Biblioteca “Dr. José Gustavo Guerrero ”- Biografía del Dr. José Gustavo Guerrero ( Memento from June 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) biography with picture (Spanish)