Title

International Law and the United Nations

Authors

University of Michigan Law School

Files

Description

In June, 1955, the University of Michigan Law School held a six-day Summer Institute dealing with problems of international law and of the United Nations. This was the eighth in the series of annual Summer Institutes dealing with important problems in areas of public concern, often with particular emphasis upon the comparative or international law aspects involved. The 1955 Institute came at the time of the tenth anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Charter on June 26, 1945, and approximately a decade after the termination of hostilities in World War II. The growth of the United Nations during that decade has been paralleled by the increasing interest in international legal studies on the part of law students, law teachers, and practicing lawyers in the United States and elsewhere throughout the world.

International and foreign law questions will bulk increasingly large in the activities and interests of many practicing lawyers, government officials, and schools in the years ahead. Some familiarity with legal problems and their solution in a context wider than the single state or nation is believed desirable in broadening the horizons of the law student and lawyer, helping him to place familiar rules and practices in a larger perspective, and clarifying his understanding of the domestic legal system with which he is most familiar. If the lawyer, who in American society so often takes a leading part in community and government activities and in the formulation of public opinion and national policy, is to discharge adequately the broader responsibilities of his profession, he must have some acquaintance with international law. International law, as the legal aspect of international relations, calls for the lawyer's skills, the lawyer's attitudes, the lawyer's approach. With the increasing importance both of the United States in world affairs and of international relations to all of us in the United States, it becomes highly necessary to have many persons sufficiently conversant with international law to understand the legal side of the problems arising in our relations with other countries. Recognition of this growing interest in international .studies, and of the importance of bringing work in international law and foreign law more closely to the attention of the great mass of American law students who will form the bar of tomorrow, caused the Ford Foundation to make a noteworthy series of grants to certain American law schools late in 1954 and in 1955 for the promotion of international legal studies. The University of Michigan Law School was among the grateful recipients of such a grant.

Having these factors in mind, the law school brought together for six days a group of law school teachers of international law, lawyers active in the field, and certain government officials working on international legal topics. The sessions were open to, and participated in by, law students, political scientists working in international law and relations, and interested lawyers. The purpose was to have a mutual exchange of ideas and discussions of new trends and developments. This volume contains the papers delivered and, so far as possible, the substance of the formal discussions which took place.

Publication Date

1957

Publisher

University of Michigan Law School

City

Ann Arbor

Keywords

Summer Institute on International and Comparative Law, United Nations, International Law, international legal studies

Disciplines

Comparative and Foreign Law | International Law | International Relations | Legal Education

Recommended Citation

University of Michigan Law School, "International Law and the United Nations" (1957). Summer Institute on International and Comparative Law. 9.
https://repository.law.umich.edu/summer_institute/9