An interview with James Crawford

University of Adelaide graduate Professor James Crawford SC, FBA is a well-known international lawyer, combining an academic career with practical work in the international law arena. He has appeared before the International Court of Justice and other international tribunals, acted for the Crown Prince of Jordan and was the first Australian to serve on the United Nations International Law Commission.

He is currently at the University of Cambridge, as Whewell Professor of International Law, Professorial Fellow of Jesus College and Director of the Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law.

Later this year, he will address the University on international law as part of the James Crawford Biennial Lecture Series.

In this interview with Howard Salkow, Professor Crawford talks about his career and explains why international law is becoming popular for law students.

Question 1

How would you describe your career path and the roles you currently perform?

Answer 1

I was born and grew up in Adelaide, and the first and still the largest part of my working life was spent in Australia, especially at the universities of Adelaide (1974-1986) and Sydney (1986-1992). I also spent some years on secondment from Adelaide working at the Australian Law Reform Commission in Sydney on a variety of projects (1982-1984).

I moved to Cambridge in 1992 as Whewell Professor of International Law, the chair I still hold. It was established in 1868 by the 19th century scientist and moral philosopher, William Whewell, with a view to devising “such measures as may tend to diminish the causes of war and finally to extinguish war between nations”. With this as its aim, one might think just now that my nine predecessors in the Chair have been resounding failures—not to speak of myself! On the other hand—while unfortunately we still have war and the rumours of war—there have been dramatic changes in the international system and in international law since then, to which they have contributed in various ways. Holders of the Whewell chair include three judges of the International Court of Justice, Sir Arnold McNair, Sir Hersch Lauterpacht and Sir Robert Jennings, and more recently the greatest international advocate of our time, Sir Derek Bowett.

Succeeding to this tradition has not been easy, but I have tried to maintain the teaching of international law in Cambridge; to develop publishing in international law through Cambridge University Press; and to further develop the Research Centre of International Law created by Hersch’s son, Sir Elihu Lauterpacht and now named after the two of them. At the same time I served for 10 years as a Member of the UN International Law Commission—the first Australian to serve on the Commission. In that capacity I was responsible for the ILC’s draft texts on an International Criminal Court and on the law of State Responsibility.

Question 2

Which roles dominate your time?

Answer 2

My time is divided between teaching, research and writing, international practice and some administration. The last of these is about to take over again: I was Dean of Sydney Law School 1990-1992 and am about to take the equivalent position at Cambridge for three years.

Question 3

Based on your undergraduate studies do you have a passion for history?

Answer 3

I read history and international relations as well as English in my arts degree, although law always took first place. But my interest in history has profoundly affected the way I think of law, and even the way I practise it. For example in boundary cases (such as the present one between Ethiopia and Eritrea) history is profoundly important.

Question 4

Is this why you chose international law?

Answer 4

I chose international law because it presented an extra challenge. I was one of the 1960s generation, opposed to the Vietnam War and interested in international affairs generally. International law tries to extend at least some degree of structure and security to international relations, and I believe that this is worth doing—or at least trying to do.

Question 5

How do you manage to combine teaching and practice? Doesn’t it pull you in opposite directions?

Answer 5

Yes, to some extent. But others have done it, and to some extent the relationship is symbiotic. I am more able to teach, for example international dispute resolution in the LLM, because I have been involved in one capacity or another in recent disputes and cases. I am more able to lecture on the International Criminal Court because I helped to produce the first draft of the Rome Statute.

Question 6

Speaking of international criminal courts, there is the suggestion that Israel’s PM Ariel Sharon should be tried for his actions in Lebanon in 1982. Surely he is not the only world leader, or wartime leader, tainted with this brush? How far does one go with this?

Answer 6

We have to move to a system of general accountability of leaders for their actions, where they are credibly suspected of war crimes and the like. There are problems about retrospectivity of course, and the Rome Statute operates only from July 2002. That will eliminate the problem of retrospectivity for the future, although it does not eliminate the problem of persons currently holding office as head of state or government, who are effectively immune while they hold office.

Question 7

Is international law becoming popular, or more popular, with law students?

Answer 7

Yes, international law is becoming more interesting to students—although there is a long tradition of teaching it at Cambridge, and for that matter at Adelaide. So some students have always been interested in the subject, but probably more so now. The reasons for enhanced interest now are, first, that so many issues are obviously international ones, and also that there are many more specifically legal forums in which one can work—perhaps not directly or often on war and peace issues, as Whewell seemed to have imagined us doing, but in areas such as trade, investment protection, human rights and the environment.

Question 8

Are you passionate about human rights to the point of openly condemning practices in certain countries, e.g. China?

Answer 8

I am not a human rights activist—not because I do not care about human rights but because being an activist for causes is largely incompatible with the sort of work I do as scholar, counsel and arbitrator. If I were, however, looking for targets of criticism in human rights at present, China would not be the first country to come to mind.

Question 9

Did you study the outcomes of the Nuremberg Trials? How do you think they would have been conducted in today’s context?

Answer 9

By the standards of the day (and even of today) they were relatively well conducted, given the circumstances. This was regrettably not so true of the Tokyo Trials. I think the Nuremberg process and outcomes were legitimate, and certainly better than summary execution of an arbitrarily selected list of individuals. But (until recently) we have made slow progress in institutionalising the principles of Nuremberg—and there is still much work to be done with the development of the International Criminal Court and in showing the US that the fears it has about the ICC are grossly exaggerated.