On the occasion of International Women's Day, the International Law Department commemorates three outstanding scholars, teachers and practitioners who have made a significant contribution to the Graduate Institute's reputation and are a great source of inspiration to all those who wish to pursue a career in the field of international law.
Krystyna Marek was born on 11th October 1914 in Cracow. In 1937 she graduated from the Faculty of Law at the Jagiellonian University. The outbreak of war forced her to emigrate to England where she worked for the Polish Social Information, the secret Polish radio station “Świt”, and finally as an attaché of the Polish embassy. In the early fifties she started studying at the Graduate Institute. She wrote her dissertation on “Identity and Continuity of States in Public International Law” under the supervision of professor Paul Guggenheim, and defended it in November 1953. This work has played an extremely significant role in shaping the contemporary study of the issue of state succession. As Nathasha Wetley put it in a recent essay revisiting the contribution of Krystyna Marek to international law, this book reflected a fundamental shift in international legal reasoning on the birth and death of states, arguing that one must think “from outside states”, as states themselves are unable to think their own non- existence. (“What Can We (She) Know about Sovereignty?: Krystyna Marek and the Worldedness of International Law” (2021))
Krystyna Marek started her academic career at the Graduate Institute in 1963 as chargée de recherches. She was appointed professeure extraordinaire in 1964, then professeure in 1967, a position that she held until 1979 when she was appointed professeure honoraire. Her academic research interests focused on state succession, the sources of public international law, multilateral cooperation, jus cogens and state responsibility under international law.
Krystyna Marek’s dedication has had a profound impact on Polish culture as well. From 1965 to 1992, she was a member of the Geneva based Koscielski Jury Prize Foundation and then Vice Chairman from 1977 to 1983. The Koscielski Jury Prize Foundation issues the oldest independent Polish literary award to "promising writers" of 40 years of age or younger and is one of the most prestigious awards in Polish literature.
Professor Marek spent her retirement years in Laupen, near Bern, where she worked on an unfinished book about the Vienna Congress in the light of public international law. She died on March 26th, 1993, at the age of 79, in Bern, Switzerland. The Polish Museum in Rapperswil has acquired her archive (which includes personal letters, publications, and documents).
Source: B. Terminski, Krystyna Marek (1914-1993): Polish Lawyer and Patriot (2014)
Denise Bindschedler-Robert was born in St-Imier (canton de Bern) on July 10th, 1920. After a childhood in St-Imier, she studied law at the universities of Lausanne and Bern. She was admitted to the bar in 1945. During the following years, she worked as a lawyer in the Federal Political Department (currently the DFAE). At the same time, she obtained her doctorate with a thesis on Swiss neutrality (Etude sur la neutralité suisse, 1950). In 1956, she began teaching international law at the Graduate Institute as professeure attachée, then chargée d'enseignement and chargée de cours. In 1964 she was appointed professeure extraordinaire , and then professeure (1967-1974). She was appointed professeure honoraire in 1985.
Denise Bindschedler-Robert was at the time one of the leading Swiss specialists in international humanitarian law and human rights. Among her publications on international humanitarian law, one may recall A Reconsideration of the Law of Armed Conflicts a report published in the volume she co-edited with Lucio Caflish on The Law of Armed Conflicts – Conference on Contemporary Problems (1971). In this report, she addressed among other things the problem of regulating non-international armed conflicts. She argued that when rebels do not constitute a de facto entity to which international law can attribute the rights and obligations arising from the laws of armed conflict, the preferred approach would be to improve the regulation of the law applicable to these conflicts, rather than to attempt to stretch the application of existing law to these conflicts by some form of political redescription (pp 51-2).
Denise Bindschedler-Robert served as a judge at the European Court of Human Rights from 1975 onwards before becoming President of the Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg from 1990 to 1996. At the same time, she was very active in the International Committee of the Red Cross (serving as a Vice-President from 1986 to 1990). In 1966, she was also the first woman to be elected to the Synodal Council of the Swiss Catholic Christian Church, of which she was a member until 1985.
She received various awards: the Pax Orbis ex Jure medal (1979), the honorary doctorate from the University of Freiburg (1982), the Walther Hug Prize (1993). In both Strasbourg and St-Imier, there is a street named after her, in memory of the dedication of this pioneering woman who marked the twentieth century with her dedication to others, always inspired by the value of justice.
She died in Bern on November 17th, 2008, at the age of 88.
Sources: A. Frei, Hans: "Bindschedler-Robert, Denise" in: Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse (DHS) (translated from French); Eglise chatolique et chrétienne de la Suisse (translated from French)
Vera Gowlland-Debbas was born on September 22nd, 1943 in Alexandria, Egypt. After graduating from the American University of Beirut in 1962, she continued her studies at the Graduate Institute where she obtained her PhD in 1986 with a thesis entitled "Legal Aspects of the United Nations Action on the Southern Rhodesia Question", which was awarded the prize of the American Society of International Law. At the Graduate Institute, she was a professeure suppleante (1994-98), professeure adjointe (2001-2009), and then professeure (2001-2009). She was appointed professeure honoraire in 2009.
Professor Gowlland-Debbas was a pioneer in the study of the legal consequences of the activities of international organisations, in particular the United Nations. She was among the first scholars in theorising the link between state responsibility and the implementation of Chapter VII sanctions adopted by the Security Council. This was the subject of her course at The Hague Academy of International Law in 2007 and at the European University Institute in Florence in 2009. “The evolution of the Charter Concept of Collective Security” was also the topic of the European Society of International Law (ESIL) lecture she delivered in 2013. She also specialised in the international law of refugees and displaced persons, which she taught regularly at our Institute.
An active member of the French Society for International Law, the American Society of International Law and the British branch of the International Law Association, Professor Gowlland-Debbas was a founding member of the European Society of International Law in 2001, and served on its Executive Committee from 2004 to 2010. Vera Gowlland-Debbas was also very active as a practitioner of international law. In 1996, she was appointed rapporteur to the Commission on Human Rights on the effects of reservations to article 4 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and was regularly invited as an expert by UN bodies such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Court of Justice. In 1998, she took part in the negotiations leading to the adoption of the Statute of the International Criminal Court in Rome as a special guest of the UN Secretary General.
Her personal commitments include the drafting of several manifestos calling for the respect of the law in times of crisis: respect for the rights of children in armed conflict (Amsterdam Declaration, 1994), respect for human rights in the fight against terrorism (Ottawa Principles, 2006). She was involved in the International Law Association's think tank in charge of a report on the responsibility of States and international organisations with regard to internally displaced persons, presented at the London conference in 2000.
After retirement, she never stopped writing. Her last contribution in a publication appeared in the same year as her death: The ICJ and the Challenges of Human Rights Law, in M. Andenas, and E. (eds) Bjorge, A Farewell to Fragmentation : Reassertion and Convergence in International Law (2015). She has left a substantial body of work to the legal profession, including a dozen books and some sixty articles, not to mention the commentaries, forums and official reports already mentioned.
Vera Gowlland-Debbas died in Geneva on September 29th, 2015 after a long illness. At the International Law Department, she is sorely missed.
Sources: D. Bouvier, Vera Gowlland-Debbas; M. Kohen, In Memoriam - Vera Gowlland-Debbas, 1 October 2015
Find out more about International Women's Day (#BreakTheBias) and UNWomen celebrations.