Michel Virally

Michel Virally (born January 6, 1922 in Autun , † January 27, 1989 in Paris ) was a French lawyer who worked in the field of international law . He worked as a professor at the Universities of Strasbourg and Geneva , as a representative of his home country in international organizations and conferences, and as a mediator and judge in international disputes.

Life

Michel virally graduated in law at the University of Paris and received his doctorate in 1948 for Doctor of Law . He then taught as a lecturer from 1949, from 1952 as professor agrégé and from 1956 as full professor for the field of international institutions at the University of Strasbourg , where he also worked as director of the Institute for Comparative Law and Economics from 1957 to 1961. After working as a research fellow at Columbia University in New York City in 1960/1961 , he took over the post of director of the Geneva University Institute for International Studies in 1961 . From 1962 to 1965 he was also associate professor of legal philosophy and from 1965 to 1974 full professor of international law and international organizations and at the same time director of the relevant department at the University of Geneva . In 1967 and 1983 he taught at the Hague Academy of International Law .

He has acted several times as legal advisor to the French government in various international disputes and mediation proceedings and as a representative of his home country in international organizations and conferences, for example at meetings of the General Assembly of the United Nations and in the negotiations on the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties . From 1985 he was a member and president of a chamber of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal . The government of El Salvador elected him in 1987 as ad hoc judge in a chamber of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague to resolve a border dispute with Honduras , but he died before the end of the proceedings.

Michel Virally belonged to the Institut de Droit international from 1971 and was a knight ( Chevalier ) of the French Legion of Honor .

L'ONU: d'hier à demain. Paris 1961
Les relations entre organizations régionales et organizations universelles. Bordeaux 1976
Le nouveau droit international de la mer. Paris 1983 (as co-author)
Le droit international en devenir: essais écrits au fil des ans. Paris 1990
Le droit international au service de la paix, de la justice et du développement. Paris 1991

Notice biographique. Michel Virally. In: Recueil des cours (Académie de droit international). Volume 183. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague 1983, ISBN 978-9-02-473248-7 , pp. 21-24
Death of a judge ad hoc in pending case. Biographical note . Press release 89/2 of the International Court of Justice of January 31, 1989 on the occasion of the death of Michel Virally (available online on the ICJ website as a PDF file , approx. 90 kB)