International Law in Greek

Abstract

There has been a continuous presence and contribution of Greek jurists in the discipline of international law ever since the interwar years. Undoubtedly, Nicholas Politis and Stylianos Seferiades were the most prominent Greek international lawyers of the interwar period; the former a government lawyer and diplomat with substantial contribution in almost every aspect of the development of international law both in and out of the institutional context of the League of Nations and the latter an academic who held the first Chair of Public International Law at the Faculty of Law of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. They were followed in the 1950s to 1970s by Jean Spyropoulos, professor of international law (Thessaloniki and Athens, member of the International Law Commission, and International Court of Justice (ICJ) judge; Konstantin Eustathiades, professor of international law (Thessaloniki and Athens), member of the International Law Commission, and member of the European Commission of Human Rights; and George Tenekides, professor of international law at the Panteion School of Political Science, member of the European Commission of Human Rights, and member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Following the restoration of democracy in 1974 a new cohort of international lawyers has dominated the discipline of international law to the present day: Argyrios Fatouros, Christos Rozakis, Konstantin Economides, Emmanuel Roukounas, and Krateros Ioannou. They have each in their own capacity inspired a large number of their students to specialize in international law, a lot of which succeeded them as faculty teaching this subject, and have pursued and are still pursuing distinguished careers in international law both in Greece and abroad. Most of the Greek international lawyers are prolific authors of books and articles and even though the tendency among a growing number of them is to publish their research in English or French an equally large number publish in Greek. They tend to publish textbooks and monographs. As far as the latter are concerned, they cover areas of the law of particular interest for Greece, such as the law of the sea, international environmental law, and human rights law as well as classical subjects, such as the settlement of disputes, international institutions, and the law of armed conflict.