Memorial for Jost Delbrück

Abstract

Memorial for Jost Delbrück Kerstin von der Decken (bio) On November 6, 2020, Jost Delbrück—the renowned scholar, author, and teacher of public international law who spent almost his whole academic life commuting between the Law School of Kiel University in Germany and Indiana University Maurer School of Law—passed away, only a few days after his 85th birthday. Hundreds of friends, colleagues, pupils, and former students on both sides of the Atlantic mourn for an extraordinary, brilliant, and inspiring person. His close ties to Kiel and Bloomington alike influenced the intellectual life of both Law Schools. The impact of his work remains visible to this day. Jost Delbrück was born on November 3, 1935 in Pyritz, West Pomerania—a region today situated in Poland. At the end of the Second World War, his family fled to West Germany and found a new home in Kiel, next to the Baltic Sea. Jost studied law and political science in Kiel, Marburg, and Tübingen from 1955 to 1958. After passing his First State Examination in Law, he started a legal clerkship in Kiel. Jost interrupted this three-and-a-half-year position, however, to pursue the LL.M. program at Indiana University Maurer School of Law. Kiel University and Indiana University already had close ties at the time. Due to a very successful student exchange program, every year, one or two students from each university would spend a few months studying abroad in Kiel and Bloomington. Jost was one of those graduate students. He was awarded a scholarship and stayed one year at the Maurer School of Law, where in 1960 he obtained his LL.M. degree—a rarity among German lawyers at the time. When Jost went back to Kiel to continue his legal clerkship, Indiana University had become his second alma mater, to which he would remain just as faithful as he did to Kiel University. One of the reasons Jost was so attracted to Kiel University was its "Institute of International Law." The Institute, founded in 1914, is the oldest university institute in the world dedicated to international law. Its large and famous library on international law was the first German [End Page 1] library to receive the status of UN Depository Library in 1948. Jost had developed a strong interest in public international law during his initial legal studies and during his stay at the Maurer School of Law. Therefore, after returning from Bloomington, he spent three months of his resumed legal clerkship as a trainee lawyer at the Institute and became a student assistant afterwards. This way, he had permanent access to the library and could work on his PhD thesis. He completed his doctorate in 1963 with the thesis "Development of the Relationship between the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations." Having passed his Second State Examination, he went back to Bloomington, where he became a research fellow at Maurer School of Law. He intended to stay in Bloomington for several years. In 1964, however, he was offered a prestigious and promising position as a senior research assistant at the Institute, and he decided, after due consideration, to return to Germany. He received his postdoctoral qualification (Habilitation) in 1971 with the thesis "The Question of Race as a Problem of International Law and National Legal Systems." In 1968, he participated in the summer courses of the Hague Academy of International Law and was awarded the difficult-to-obtain diploma (which is usually only given to one candidate a year). A deputy professorship at Hamburg University in 1971 and an appointment as professor at Göttingen University in 1972 kept Jost from Kiel for some years. However, in 1976, he returned and became the director of the Institute. He remained loyal to the Institute until his retirement in 2001. His ties to the United States and to Bloomington, however, remained of crucial importance throughout his career. Jost strengthened and intensified these relationships over the years. In 1981-1982, he acted as Visiting Professor at Harvard University. In 1991, he accepted the offer to become Permanent Visiting Professor at Indiana University Maurer School of Law—a position he held...