As part of the International Law Seminar's 60th Anniversary commemorative project, former participants from across the decades were invited to reflect on their experience and share how the Seminar influenced their professional and personal journeys. The testimonials below, from participants of the 1st (1965) to the 39th Session (2003), offer unique insights into the lasting impact of the Seminar and its role in shaping careers in international law.
Donald McRae, 5th session (1969), New Zealand
"In 1969 I attended the 5th Session of the International Law Seminar. The Seminar had been drawn to my attention by Professor R.Y. Jennings, then a Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge and later a judge and President of the International Court of Justice. I was a graduate student at Jesus college and Professor Jennings, who had good connexions with the Foreign Office, arranged for the British government to sponsor me even though I was a New Zealand national. The Seminar gave me an introduction to international diplomacy and international law-making and was an important part of the development of my career in international law although at the time it was never in my mind that I would one day sit on the Commission.
The Commission in those days was fewer in number than today (25) but it was composed of many distinguished international lawyers including Roberto Ago, Mohammed Bedjaoui, Jorge Casteñada, Erik Castrén, Taslim Elias, Jiminez de Aréchega, Nagendra Singh, Paul Reuter, Shabtai Rosenne, José Maria Ruda, Sir Humphrey Waldock, Mustafa Kamil Yasseen and others. The Chair of the Commission was Nicolai Ushakov. The pattern for the Seminar was similar to today with lectures to the Seminar participants from members of the Commission and then sitting in on the Commission’s plenary sessions. My recollection is that we spent much more time in the sessions of the Commission than is currently the practice in the Seminar.
The debates in the Commission were vigorous, and at times heated. It was still the time of the Cold War, and the political divisions were much more evident than later during my time on the Commission. One member referred to the views of another member as nothing more than “Marxist mythology”. By contrast considerable deference appeared to be given to Sir Humphrey Waldock, perhaps reflecting the fact the Commission had recently completed its work on the highly successful topic of the Law of Treaties, for which Waldock was Special Rapporteur and which subsequently became the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
We listened to debates over the draft articles on representative of states to international organizations and early discussions on the topic of state succession. It was also the session at which Roberto Ago delivered his first report as Special Rapporteur on state responsibility, although the topic was not to be concluded until some thirty years later under James Crawford. There is also some irony in the fact that at this session the Special Rapporteur, Endre Ustor, delivered his first report on the most-favoured nation clause, as in 2009 I co-chaired with Rohan Perera (a participant in the 1978 International Law Seminar) a Study Group to look at further aspects of MFN.
The participants in the Seminar included both graduate students on international law and junior government officials working in the field of international law. They were predominantly from Western and Eastern Europe, but also from Lain America, Africa and Asia. That mix was an important part of the experience. It also provided the basis for long-term friendships in the field of international law, in particular in my case with Raymond Ranjeva, who later became a Judge on the ICJ and Luzius Wildhaber who later became the President of the European Court of Human Rights.
The International Law Seminar took me from the world of international law as perceived from the academy, to the world of international law in practice. It laid the groundwork for me not only to teach about the ILC, but to write an assessment of the Commission after its first 40 years in the 1987 Canadian Yearbook International law, to be an adviser to the Canadian delegation to the Sixth Committee on ILC matters, to assist in the election of the Canadian J. Alan Beesley to the Commission in and ultimately to be elected myself to the ILC. My participation in the International Law Commission was thus an invaluable starting point."
Shinya Murase, 11th session (1975), Japan
"After I obtained my PhD degree in international law from the University of Tokyo Faculty of Law in 1972, I studied at Harvard Law School in 1974 to 1976. My best friend at Harvard was Sylvernus Tiewul from Ghana, a doctoral student, who told me that he was planning to attend the International Law Seminar (ILS), and taught me how to apply it. I wrote to Ambassador Senjin Tsuruoka, then member of the International Law Commission (ILC), asking for his recommendation, who in turn wrote a nice letter to the Director of the Seminar for me, despite that the participants from Japan had hitherto been limited to the young diplomats of the Foreign Ministry. Luckily, I was chosen to participate in the Seminar in 1975. There, I was together with Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade, my life-long friend from Brazil. The participants watched the ILC sessions in the morning and had lectures given by the ILC members in the afternoon. Attached is a photo taken at one of the ILC sessions in 1975, where I sat with Antônio right behind Professor-Judge Roberto Ago, then member of the ILC.
Meeting with a number of brilliant young practitioners and scholars of international law coming from various parts of the world including Sylvernus and Antônio at the 1975 ILS session gave indeed profound impact on my subsequent career as an international lawyer. While I had only been interested in the abstract theories of international law, I learned from them the importance to relate the theories into practice. If I had not attended the Seminar that year, my life would have been entirely a different one.
At the Seminar, there were two young officials of the UN Codification Division who were helping the organization of the program, Larry Johnson from the United States and Eduardo Valencia-Ospina from Columbia. Thanks to their kind suggestion, I was able to get a job at the Codification Division in 1980-82 as a P-4 level legal officer. The Division was in charge of servicing the ILC and the Sixth Committee of the General Assembly. Below is a photo taken at the 1981 Sixth Committee meeting in which the members of the Codification Division lined up behind the President of the Sixth Committee and its bureau.
After my experiences at the Codification Division, “international lawmaking” became the “home ground” of my research activities. Eduardo Valencia-Ospina was elected to an ILC member since 2006, later serving as Special Rapporteur for the topic “Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters”. I was elected to the ILC in 2009 and was appointed as Special Rapporteur on the “Protection of the Atmosphere” in 2013, the topic which was completed in 2021. My ILC membership (as well as Eduardo’s) came to an end in 2022.
During those years, I was often invited to give lectures at the ILS, which was indeed a great honor for me. As Mr. Vittorio Mainetti, long-time Coordinator of the Seminar, might recall, I always spoke there on the “Protection of the Atmosphere”, frankly revealing the insider’s view of the Commission. I told the participants, for example, that, in 2012 when the topic was expected to be adopted by the Commission with the endorsement of the Sixth Committee given in the previous year, the decision of the ILC was postponed due to the opposition by the five members coming from P-5 States, though most others were in favor of my topic. I was furious that those five members acted as if the ILC had been the Security Council with the veto power. On that occasion, I declared that I would resign from the ILC in protest, which was, I said, the course how a Samurai, when humiliated, should take. My ILC colleagues persuaded me not to rush into hara-kiri, assuring that they would make all the efforts for the adoption of the topic the following year. I recalled that my ancestor decided in the battle of Komaki-Nagakute (1584) to abandon his Samurai status and became a peasant in Nagakute. A peasant or a farmer was a person, who, however severely humiliated, would persevere as if crawling on the ground. So, I decided not to resign. Then, the following year, in 2013, the topic was formally adopted, though with the infamous “2013 Understanding” by which several conditions were imposed on the Special Rapporteur again in a most humiliating manner. Nonetheless, the topic was successfully completed with a set of 12 draft guidelines and the commentaries thereto …. This was one of the stories that I was telling to the ILS participants about the work of the Commission.
In those years, I became friends with many of the young participants of the Seminar, including a young participant from Russia, though I was emphatically critical of the Russian aggression of Ukraine. I believe that friendship is the basis of international law, and that it is also the basis of the ILS. On the happy occasion of the 60th anniversary of the ILS, I would like to pay tribute with deep gratitude to the ILS for giving me the most valuable opportunity as a participant, and the most enjoyable opportunity as a lecturer. Long Live the ILS!"
Phoebe Okowa, 27th session (1991), Kenya
"I attended the International Law Seminar in the summer of 1991. I had just finished my Bachelor of Civil law degree at Oxford and embarked on my doctoral studies under the supervision of the late Professor Ian Brownlie. It may be recalled that this was the period when the Commission had to grapple with some of the most difficult and consequential issues in international law. Two topics of interest were on the Commission’s agenda: State Responsibility and Liability for Injurious Consequences of Acts not Prohibited by International Law. Both raised profound questions about the changing character of state obligations, in particular whether or not the enforceable content of international law recognized and could sustain a separate regime of criminal responsibility of states. Professor Brownlie was a firm believer in the work of the Commission and its place in the codification and progressive development of international law. He thought that following the debates in the Commission would provide an important foundational basis for my own research. That summer in Geneva was rewarding and meaningful, in terms of what I learned from the debates in the Commission and the strong friendships between us participants. It was also for me an early introduction to the techniques and processes of international law-making within the United Nations’ system. But it was striking and disappointing to see that there were no women in the Commission. This continued to be the case for many years after. The Commission I joined (as the first African woman elected) had five women, with one more elected to fill a casual vacancy in 2023 - progress by ILC standards but with a long way still to go.
I am pleased that the seminars themselves continue to be representative, both in terms of geography and gender. This is as it should be. The international law seminar was this young Kenyan woman’s first contact with the practice of international law. That I would go on to be elected to both the ILC and the ICJ is a testament to the seminars’ potential to inspire the next generation of international lawyers.. I hope you have a very good and productive summer as the seminars celebrates their 60th anniversary."
If you are an alumnus of the Seminar and would like to share your story about the impact the Seminar has had on your career and your life trajectory, and have it featured on this page, please contact us at ils@un.org.
