The Changing Structure of International Law Revisited By Way of Introduction

In the academic year 1968-9, the University of Paris II hosted Wolfgang Friedmann, on sabbatical from Columbia University, as Associate Professor. A number of young French students thus had the opportunity to follow a seminar in international economic law which was to influence deeply the careers of several of them, among them myself. Quite apart from the topic dealt with international economic law was not yet commonly taught in French universities it was Friedmann's personality as such that exercised undeniable charm. His Mozartian first name expressed his character, but only in part Indeed, Friedmann had two forenames, which clashed rather brusquely to our Parisian student ears: alongside Wolfgang was Gaston, the first pointing to his German father, and the second to his French mother. This combination was symbolic in itself, for Friedmann combined multiple cultural worlds (Kultur is a word that often recurs in The Changing Structure) and civilizations: German and French cultures, but also, since his home country had sunk into barbarism, British culture (as far as I know, Friedmann remained a British citizen until the end of his life), American culture and still other non-Western ones, in which he was to display an interest during his many teaching periods abroad. It was perhaps, indeed certainly, this man of culture that primarily interested the students we were: opening his General Theory of Law, translated into French in 1965, and discovering an author equally at ease in the French school of exegesis, the German school of public law, or in British and American legal scholarship

Barbarism · Character (mathematics · Civilization · German · Linguistics · Political science · Sociology · Classics · History · International Arbitration and Investment Law · Law · Philosophy

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