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IN MEMORIAM PROFESSOR VLADISLAV DAVID
IN MEMORIAM PROFESSOR VLADISLAV DAVID
It is with deep sadness that we note the passing of prof. JUDr. Vladislav David, DrSc.,
Dr.h.c., who died on 11 March 2014, aged 86. A man of great intellect, vision,
strong commitment to humanity and basic human values, but also a man with an
aristocratic sense of humor, prof. David was one of the outstanding representatives of
Czechoslovak and Czech international law science and scholarship.
Prof. David was born on 12 August 1927 in Brno. After finishing his high school
studies and, contrary to the wish of his mother, who wanted him to become a priest,
he decided to become a lawyer. This was not a random decision – the horrible
experience of the Second World War made him to believe in two core values which
were determinant of his whole life – belief and humanity. He was convinced that
spreading and advocating the ideals of justice through the profession of a lawyer will
help to implement these values with the consequence of preventing the horrors of war
being repeated. In 1946 Vladislav David became a law student at the Faculty of Law
in Brno, where he met such outstanding Czechoslovak scholars as prof. František
Weyr, Hynek Bulín, or Jiří Cvetler. He also attended lectures of prof. Bohuslav
Ečer dedicated to prosecution of war criminals, which further contributed to the
development of his interest in public international law.
After the closure of the Law Faculty in Brno in 1950, prof. David thought about
leaving Brno and beginning his career at the Law Faculty of Charles University in
Prague. This idea was, however, never realized as he decided to dedicate his energy
to his family. Professionally the following years marked his turn to journalism, when
for a number of years he edited professional journals and, working for the Brno
Trade Fairs and Exhibitions, he wrote scenarios for exhibitions taking place abroad.
Examples of prof. David´s literary activities from this time are, however, not only
books reflecting his occupation at the time, such as
A city with a revived valley
(Město
s oživlým údolím
[1968]), but also books dedicated, for example, to the partnership
of men and women,
A mystery of love and various other social questions
(Tajemník lásky
a všelijakých jiných otázek společenských
[1968]).
The change of the political situation and circumstances at the end of the 1960s
led to the decision of Vladislav David to participate in the reopening of the Law
Faculty in Brno, where he started to work as senior lecturer at the Institute of
International Law, which he later become the director of. In 1975 he successfully
defended his dissertation thesis
On Certain Questions of the Legal Status of West Berlin
(K některým otázkám právního statutu Západního Berlína [1975]) at the Law
Faculty of Komenský University in Bratislava. In 1981 he became doctor of juridical
sciences (
International Crimes and Their Legal Consequences
[Mezinárodní zločiny
a jejich právní následky, 1988]) and consequently professor of international law (
State
Responsibility for Internationaly Wrongful Acts
[Odpovědnost státu za mezinárodně
protiprávní chování]). At this time he lectured also at the Law Faculties in Košice,
Prague, Kiev, Leipzig, Copenhagen and Wroclaw. Until 1992, when he decided to