CYIL 2014

488

ŠTEFAN VIEDENSKÝ

CYIL 5 ȍ2014Ȏ

Court of Justice include

Nicaragua v. United States

Nauru v. Australia

Bosnia and

Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro

, the

Pedra Branca dispute

Libya v. United Kingdom

Libya v. United States

, and

Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda

. He also argued

several important cases before the European Court of Human Rights, including

Cyprus

v. Turkey.

He also represented Amnesty International at the extradition trial of Chilean

coup-leader Augusto Pinochet before the English courts in 1999. He was a member of

the United Nations International Law Commission from 1997 until his resignation in

2008. Brownlie was a Fellow of the British Academy and his memberships included

the Institut de Droit International and the International Law Association. In 2006,

he was awarded the Wolfgang Friedmann Memorial Award for international law.

He was knighted in the 2009 Birthday Honours. Professor Brownlie died in a car

accident in Cairo on 3 January 2010.

Professor Brownlie also published several others works, which are considered to

be standard texts in their fields:

–

International Law and the Use of Force between States

(Oxford doctoral thesis,

1963);

–

Basic Documents in International Law

(1967) (6th ed., 2008);

–

Basic Documents on Human Rights

(1971) (5th ed., 2006);

–

African Boundaries: A Legal and Diplomatic Encyclopaedia

(1979);

–

System of the Law of Nations: State Responsibility

(1983);

–

The Reality of International Law: Essays in Honour of Ian Brownlie

(1999), co-

edited by Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, Stefan Talmon and Brownlie himself.

As already mentioned, the first edition of Professor Ian Brownlie’s Principles of

Public International Law was published in 1966. The book covers the major aspects

of international law, or perhaps better said, of the law of peace (“modern age law”).

It was primarily established as a student textbook but since then became a milestone

and a basis for knowledge of international law as such. Some legal experts (Professor

Richard Baxter) describe this monograph as a “general treatise on international law”.

This may be quite questionable, but the way the book is written and structured (at the

end of some chapters the author summarizes and presents his often critical and even

dismissive views of other renowned lawyers – e.g. pages 111, 112, large footnote-

apparatus, etc.), may agree with these thoughts. The publication in its entirety does

not appear to be just like the classic textbook, which only notes (or describes) facts,

but rather brings up a number of polemical passages with the intention of evoking

the reader to further deeper study and familiarization with a specific issue (e.g.:

page 137 − part 7, “The Creation and Transfer of Territorial Sovereignty − methods

Sands, Philippe:

“Sir Ian Brownlie obituary”

. The Guardian (London: Guardian News and Media, 12

January 2010).

source “Wikipedia”.

British Yearbook of International Law − 1967, 333, in Colin Warbrick: “Brownlie’s Principles of Public

International Law: An Assessment, EJIL (2000), Vol.11, No. 3, pp. 621-636 (p. 628).