Myres Smith McDougal

Myres Smith McDougal (born  November 23, 1906 in Burton , Mississippi , †  May 7, 1998 in North Branford , Connecticut ) was an American lawyer and expert in the field of international law . From 1934 to 1975 he worked on the law faculty of Yale University , where he was appointed Sterling Professor in 1958 . He was also President and Honorary President of the American Society for International Law . In the second half of the 20th century, he was one of the most influential legal scholars in the field of international law.

Life

Myres Smith McDougal was born in the US state of Mississippi in 1906, his father worked as a country doctor and local politician. Until 1926 he studied classical antiquity and law at the University of Mississippi , where he obtained degrees as BA , MA and LL.B. acquired. After a short stint as a lecturer in Greek and Latin at the University of Mississippi, he completed 1929/1930 as a Rhodes Scholar to study at St John's College of the University of Oxford . A year later he received his PhD from Yale University . While Myres Smith McDougal was influenced by his previous training in his legal philosophical views mainly positivistic , the Yale University was a center of legal realism at that time . After a temporary teaching position at the University of Illinois , he returned to Yale in 1934 and was around two For decades mainly active in the field of property law. He made fundamental contributions in this area, through which property law developed from a narrow focus on the protection of private land ownership claims to a comprehensive regulation of the planning and use of spatial resources of a community for the common benefit of all concerned.

During the Second World War in 1943 he worked, among other things, as an advisor to the State Department of the United States . This activity gave rise to his interest in the field of international law , which he devoted himself to after the war until the end of his academic career. He co-authored with employees and colleagues conducted a series of comprehensive treatises on various aspects of international law, including for example the Law of the Sea , the Space Law , the International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights counted. Myres Smith McDougal was President of the American Society for International Law in 1958 and 1959 . In 1969 he was a member of the American delegation to the international conference taking place in Vienna , at which the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties was drawn up and adopted. After his retirement in 1975, he continued to work at Yale University until the 1980s. He was also a visiting professor at New York Law School , a private law school in New York .

Myres Smith McDougal was married and had one son from 1933 until his death. Due to retinal detachment in both eyes, he had to undergo four operations later in his life. As a result, he was almost blind in the last four decades of his life, which despite this handicap were his most productive creative period.

Legal philosophical and political views

Together with political scientist Harold D. Lasswell , who also worked at Yale University, Myres Smith McDougal founded what is known as the New Haven School of Jurisprudence in the field of law and political science. According to this approach, which is partly influenced by natural law , the law should not primarily be understood as a fixed set of rules, but rather as a decision-making process. This decision-making process should aim at the creation, promotion and dissemination of values ​​such as power, property, enlightenment, prosperity, warmth, respect and righteousness.

Both theory and practice of law are accordingly to be based on certain principles, which above all include the establishment of a public order characterized by respect for human dignity . In the area of ​​international law, his point of view is one of the most important and influential new positions of the last decades compared to the previous state.

He saw the conflict between democracy and totalitarianism as a conflict between different systems of the world order. He published a number of papers on various aspects of this topic, although it was rather unusual for legal scholars of the time to take a public position on current political issues. In the opinion of some critics, his treatises were partly shaped by the American design standards called Pax Americana .

Awards

Myres Smith McDougal received the title of Sterling Professor from Yale University in 1958 , the college's highest degree. In 1972 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , in 1982 he was made an Honorary Fellow of St John's College, Oxford. Various universities such as Columbia University (1954), York University (1970) and Temple University (1975) awarded him an honorary doctorate . In addition, he was Honorary President of the American Society for International Law, from which he received the ASIL Certificate of Merit in 1962 for his two years earlier work "Studies in World Public Order" and in 1976 the Manley-O.-Hudson Medal for received his services in the field of international law. A law school chair at Yale University has been named after his death .

Works (selection)

• Studies in World Public Order. Yale University Press, New Haven 1960
• Law and minimum world order. The legal regulation and international coercion. Yale University Press, New Haven 1961
• The Public Order of the Oceans: A Contemporary International Law of the Sea. Yale University Press, New Haven 1962/1963
• Law and public order in space. Yale University Press, New Haven 1963
• Human rights and world public order: The basic policies of an international law of human dignity. Yale University Press, New Haven 1980
• Jurisprudence For a Free Society: Studies in Law, Science and Policy. Nijhoff, Hingham 1992

literature

• Andrew R. Willard: Myres Smith McDougal: A Life of and About Human Dignity. In: Yale Law Journal. 108 (5 )/1999. Yale Law Journal Company, Inc., pp. 927-934, ISSN  0044-0094
• Richard A. Falk, Rosalyn C. Higgins, W. Michael Reisman, Burns H. Weston: Myres Smith McDougal (1906-1998). In: American Journal of International Law . 92 (4 )/1998. American Society of International Law, pp. 729-733, ISSN  0002-9300

Web links

• ASIL Presidents: Myres Smith McDougal Short biography with picture