Impressions: Georg Dahm. Volkerrecht, 3 volumes (1958-1961)

Abstract

With Impressions, as the name indicates, we wish to provide a forum for a more personal, historical-contextual approach to book reviewing. We have asked some of our older, possibly wiser, scholars of public international law to revisit a book which very much influenced their thinking, a book that indeed made a lasting impression on them. Rather than presenting a critical assessment of the book, our reviewers will offer personal reflections on the impact a book has had on their own thinking as well as its past and continued relevance for public international law scholarship. We begin this series with Karl Doehring, former Director of the Max-Planck Institute of Public International Law and Comparative Public Law, writing on Georg Dahm's Volkerrecht. Georg Dahm. Volkerrecht, 3 volumes. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1958�1961. The scientific work that impressed me most when I started to deal with Public International Law was Georg Dahm's Volkerrecht. My first �encounter� with Public International Law was during World War II when I was an army officer and was ordered to teach soldiers the fundamentals of the Geneva Conventions. I was no lawyer back then. Later on, during the long years of war imprisonment, I became the object of this precise subject matter myself. In the battle against the British army in Africa, humanitarian law was observed fairly well, apart from the fact that we were repatriated only three years after the cessation of hostilities. Only in partisan warfare were the laws of war frequently violated, even though it was precisely this form of combat that warring parties were meant to avoid. During my law studies in Heidelberg (1949�1951), Public International Law was more or less immaterial. No experts were available to teach the subject. �