A. Admission by Lincoln College and Law Faculty Board

Chen was allocated to Oxford University by the British Council.Footnote ²⁶ At Oxford, there is a statutory Chichele Professorship of Public International Law and Diplomacy, which was established in 1859.Footnote ²⁷ At the time of Chen's enrolment at Oxford, Brierly was the holder of this eminent chair. In 1945, he had already held the chair for more than two decades and was already sixty-four years old—just two years before his announced retirement.

While Chen was on the way to England, the British Council had already arranged his admission to Lincoln College, Oxford. As a scholarship holder, Chen did not need personal connections to gain admission, since the British Council was charged with co-ordinating the admission and supervision of a large number of scholars selected from all over the world.Footnote ²⁸ He was admitted by the College on 4 October 1945.Footnote ²⁹ The information furnished for registration shows that he was born on 1 September 1917 in Fuzhou, Fujian, as the first son of Chen Ming, a teacher.Footnote ³⁰

On 1 November 1945, Chen filled out a form initially applying for admission to the Doctor of Philosophy programme. He put down his academic qualification as a Bachelor of Laws degree awarded by Tsinghua University in July 1939.Footnote ³¹ As evidence of his research aptitude, he provided the title of an award-winning book he authored, “Foreign Affairs Administration in China (in Chinese) published by Commercial Press, 1944 [sic]”.Footnote ³² He stated that this publication won a prize awarded by Ministry of Education for Books of the Year.Footnote ³³ In addition, he submitted a letter of reference in support of his admission from Professor S.Y. Chang (Zhang Xiruo), Director, Political Science Department, Tsinghua University. At the beginning, Chen seemed to be interested in researching war crimes,Footnote ³⁴ for China had just suffered a period of horrendous, brutal invasion by the Imperial Japanese Army, and this was a topic dear to his heart. These records suggest that the British Council did not exercise strict control over their scholars’ final choice of study, so long as they were able to find themselves a supervisor to oversee their research.

Eventually, in order to find himself such a supervisor, Chen had to alter his application. In 1945, the Oxford Faculty of Law was quite small compared with its strength today—it only had five professors, three readers, and one lecturer. Brierly was the only one who specialized in public international law,Footnote ³⁵ and, as a corollary of Chen's proposed branch of study, was undoubtedly the most suitable supervisor for Chen. Probably on the advice of Brierly, Chen changed his intended research topic to “the problem of recognition” and sought admission to the programme of Bachelor of Letters [BLitt] instead of Doctor of Philosophy [DPhil].Footnote ³⁶ While the university regulation at that time actually allowed an applicant in Chen's situation to be directly admitted to the doctoral programme,Footnote ³⁷ Chen was nevertheless recommended to apply to the BLitt programme instead, probably due to the faculty's lack of experience dealing with Chinese applicants to the research law programme, or because Brierly's first Chinese research student had failed to complete the law programme fifteen years earlier. Harold Greville Hanbury, who was a law tutor and concurrently a senior tutor at Lincoln College, endorsed Chen's application and forwarded it to the Law Faculty Board for approval.Footnote ³⁸ On 24 November 1945, Chen finally matriculated as a student of the university.Footnote ³⁹ On 1 December 1945, after the Law Board's meeting, the Applications Committee recommended that Chen's application be granted and Brierly was invited to be Chen's supervisor.Footnote ⁴⁰ The role of supervisor at Oxford during that era was to “direct and superintend the work of the Student, but not to give him systematic instruction”.Footnote ⁴¹ Despite Brierly's advanced age and impending retirement, he willingly took this young man from China under his wing, possibly because he was impressed with Chen through their interactions, and also because of Brierly's sympathetic attitude towards China.Footnote ⁴²

Even though Chen was admitted to read for the BLitt degree, his dream of pursuing a doctorate was not dashed by this initial impediment, because the University regulation allowed a student or probationer-student for the degree of BLitt satisfying certain conditions to transfer to the doctoral programme, not later than the third term after his admission.Footnote ⁴³ Thus, while Chen was in his third term (by that time, each academic year consisted of three terms at Oxford), he took advantage of this privilege with the blessing of his supervisor. His exceptional industry, demonstrated ability, and admirable progress must have greatly impressed Brierly. By June 1946, Chen was given the indication to apply for transfer to the status of advanced student (doctoral student).Footnote ⁴⁴ On this occasion, in support of his application, Chen submitted three letters of recommendation from his alma mater: from Dr Y.C. Mei (Mei Yiqi), President of Tsinghua University, Professor S.Y. Chang (Zhang Xiruo), Director of the Political Science Department, and Professor Quentin Pan (Pan Guangdan), Dean of the Law Faculty.Footnote ⁴⁵ His research had expanded to include not only recognition, but also succession in international law, as suggested by the proposed title, “Recognition and Succession in International Law”.Footnote ⁴⁶ Hanbury, his tutor at Lincoln, in his capacity as senior tutor, endorsed this transfer application on 3 June 1946.Footnote ⁴⁷ It was conceivable that Brierly had made all the arrangements for a smooth transfer, for the Applications Committee promptly gave the green light to his application on 15 June 1946.Footnote ⁴⁸ With that, Chen became China's first doctoral student in law at Oxford. He persevered in his arduous but fruitful research journey. Chen was Brierly's last pupil at Oxford. Even after Brierly retired from his chair at Oxford in August 1947,Footnote ⁴⁹ he was still willing and able to supervise him until he took up the Montague Burton Professorship of International Relations at Edinburgh from 1948 to 1951. By that time, Chen had completed his study in England.

B. Camaraderie Between Chen and Cheng Bin

During Chen's study in England, he struck up a friendship with a like-minded, brilliant Chinese law student, Cheng Bin, who was a contemporary of his, six years younger, and who would later become a foremost authority on public international law, aviation law, and space law. Cheng was a research student at University College London, reading for a PhD in law under the supervision of famed public international law scholar Georg Schwarzenberger.Footnote ⁵⁰ At that time, the London School of Economics boasted a first-class specialist library housing capacious volumes relating to international law.Footnote ⁵¹ Chen's dissertation was based upon consulting a voluminous amount of material relating to state recognition. It goes without saying that this library was an ideal place to conduct his research.Footnote ⁵² It was at this library that Chen first met Cheng and made his acquaintance.Footnote ⁵³ Cheng was a regular user of the library during the second half of the 1940s,Footnote ⁵⁴ and there were many chances for the two to get together. According to Cheng's recollection: “T. C. Chen often came down from Oxford to carry out his research there too. We were there working on our respective doctoral theses, his for the Oxford D. Phil. and mine the London Ph.D. That was how we first met.”Footnote ⁵⁵ Chen formed a lifetime friendship with Cheng, and they discussed international law problems of mutual interest frequently over lunch breaks.Footnote ⁵⁶

A. A Brief Overview of Chen's Dissertation

Chen's unedited dissertation spanned 567 pages, exclusive of nine pages of case names and thirteen pages of bibliography.Footnote ⁵⁸ The amount of material he consulted was stunningly exhaustive. He adopted theoretical as well as empirical approaches in his research, the result of which was a comprehensive dissertation containing theoretical analyses and a wide-ranging distillation of judicial practices at international and national courts, whereupon he sought to cast his reflections and suggestions. His unedited dissertation comprised seven chapters, a brief summary of which is annexed in the Appendix to this paper.Footnote ⁵⁹

Recognition in international law has two competing theories—the constitutive theory and the declaratory theory. Chen was highly critical of the constitutive theory, which posits that the state is “the ultimate source of international rights and duties”,Footnote ⁶⁰ and that “a State cannot be bound by any obligation except with its own consent, a new State or government or insurgent body cannot be allowed to exercise rights against an existing State unless it has recognised them”.Footnote ⁶¹ To him, this was an extremely ill-balanced and unjustifiable proposition—not only would it allow an entity to “be free to liberate itself from the restraints of law with respect to other entities by simply refusing to recognise them”, it further “indulges in the illusion that the rights of a Power, as long as it is not recognised, may be infringed with impunity”.Footnote ⁶² If so, “[s]uch a view may serve the purpose of Machiavellian statesmen who put national interests above all others. It provides them with a justification for ignoring the existence of other entities and denying them rights under international law.”Footnote ⁶³ Chen, with his strong conviction that international law was designed to “regulate the conduct of political entities in harmonious co-existence within a community”, thus passionately asserted that upholding the constitutive theory would be “highly detrimental to international harmony and would defeat the purpose of international law”.Footnote ⁶⁴ In Chen's view, the higher purpose of international law was to offer protection against the encroachment of the rights of weaker states: “non-recognition does not give the foreign State the right to treat the unrecognised Power as if it were beyond the pale of international law.”Footnote ⁶⁵ Hence:

Instead, Chen was an ardent exponent of the declaratory theory:

He further rejected modified versions of the constitutive theory, for these “either [were] inadequate to remedy the defects of the traditional theory, or approximate to the declaratory view so closely that they [were] practically indistinguishable from it”.Footnote ⁶⁸

Chen was adamantly opposed to using the weapon of recognition to interfere with a state's ability to govern itself. “Considerations such as the willingness to fulfil international obligations may influence the decision of other States whether or not to enter into relations with it. But this does not entitle other States to deny it the right to govern.”Footnote ⁶⁹ In fact, this was Chen's insinuated attack on the Western powers’ coercive gunboat diplomacy toward China's opening and subsequent imposition of extra-territoriality. When China was first breaking the ice with the West in a bid to establish political and trade relations, it was made to bear with the Western powers’ refusal to accord it proper recognition as a civilized nation, thereby denying it the enjoyment of the panoply of rights under international law. Their coercive gunboat diplomacy toward China's opening and subsequent imposition of extra-territoriality “explains what appears to be the contradictory conduct of States which, while entering into certain relations with a new entity, yet persistently maintain that no recognition is being accorded”. This humiliating and painful experience might have triggered Chen's subscription to the view that “[a]ll that a foreign State can do is either to abstain from any intercourse with it, or to employ the ordinary measures of international pressure after the establishment of normal relations”.Footnote ⁷⁰

Chen spent an entire chapter of his dissertation on the issue of recognizing belligerency and insurgency, making a significant contribution to this novel area of study. Chen argued that the declaratory principle of recognition, as framed by him, applies “mutatis mutandis to the recognition of belligerency”.Footnote ⁷¹ He took the view that belligerent bodies possess legal personality, because civil wars “may be regulated by the same rules as those obtaining in international wars”.Footnote ⁷² Chen further avers that there are two elements of recognition—a declaration of fact and an expression of the intent to enter into political relations. While the former must be irrevocable and unconditional, the latter was revocable and capable of being subject to conditions. In any case, “revocation of recognition does not affect the legal existence of the recognised entity”.Footnote ⁷³ In the context of belligerent recognition, Chen argued that such recognition could not be revocable, or otherwise the rescission of recognition would amount to “taking sides in the struggle”.Footnote ⁷⁴

In terms of judicial practice, he found that “recognition does not affect legal rights and duties of the parities”.Footnote ⁷⁵ He suggested that an international tribunal should adjudicate “such rights as they would be entitled to according to their actual existence, irrespective of whether or not one party has recognised the other”.Footnote ⁷⁶ That said, Chen accepted that a national court could still adopt a different approach, particularly in those states subscribing to the principle of judicial self-limitation, because the national courts in these scenarios were precluded from inquiring into the legality of the acts of the political branch in the light of international law.Footnote ⁷⁷

Like his supervisor, Chen took a naturalist position towards international law, arguing that there was a “higher law” governing the legality of acts of states. He strongly disapproved of some writers who were similarly proponents of the declaratory principle but had “sought to apply the logic to acts in breach of international law”.Footnote ⁷⁸ These writers’ basic view was that, since recognition was based on the factual existence of certain conditions, a factual situation brought about in contravention of law ought to be similarly recognized, because “it has become a fait accompli”.Footnote ⁷⁹ Chen offered his resolute counter-argument as follows:

B. Brierly's Influence on Chen

At this point, it is most appropriate to briefly examine Brierly's signal contribution to international law and its practical influence on Chen. In an illuminating essay piece on Brierly's contribution to international law by the esteemed Hersch Lauterpacht, it was opined that Brierly's most significant and lasting contribution “lies in the fact that during a period of transition and reassessment of values, he threw the weight of his writing and teaching in the scales of what may properly be regarded as a progressive conception of international law”.Footnote ⁸¹ More concretely, Brierly argued for the revival of natural law as the moral foundation of international law, namely that, there was a pressing need to place a constraint on states’ unbridled control over the formulation and development of international law. Brierly disagreed with the then prevailing doctrine of positivism and vehemently contested the rigid separation between law and morality. In a nutshell, Lauterpacht summarized Brierly's contribution as having found manifestation in “the rejection of positivism, the affirmation of the moral foundation of international law, the recognition of the individual as a subject of international law, the vindication of the unity of international and municipal law, and his criticism of the notion of the international sovereignty of the State”.Footnote ⁸² His outlook on the first two aspects evidently had a profound influence on Chen, as exhibited throughout his dissertation.

Indeed, Brierly's last pupil at Oxford was a faithful disciple, who wholeheartedly embraced his mentor's teachings and thoughts on the role of the natural law theory in international law. In fact, Chen's championing of the declaratory theory of recognition was largely predicated upon the natural law theory:

Like Brierly, Chen firmly rejected the dogmatic adherence to positivism, arguing along the same lines and logic as propounded by his supervisor about the moral foundation of international law. For instance, when Chen discussed the obligatory character of international law, he articulately questioned the positivists’ apparent oblivion to the inherence of morality in their assumptions:

Chen was utterly taken by Brierly's teachings that there was a “close connexion between law, morals, and politics, and the consequent importance of international law for the philosophic study of the law”.Footnote ⁸⁵ He drew upon Brierly's mild assertion that “only a gloomy pessimist would fail to recognise that common moral and cultural standards do exist internationally, that they influence conduct between nations and that this community of sentiment, imperfect though it is, affords some basis for law”,Footnote ⁸⁶ and pronounces this view “valuable as a corrective to the cult of State-worship and the inflexible logic of the theory of sovereignty”.Footnote ⁸⁷ Brierly's impact on Chen's intellectual orientation and development was evident throughout his doctrinal analyses and arguments in his dissertation, and would continue to be demonstrated in Chen's subsequent works.

A. Foreword by Brierly—His Enthusiastic Praise of Chen's Research and Contribution

As the supervisor who had guided Chen through his doctoral research and thesis writing, Brierly graciously penned the foreword for Chen's book, whereupon he pronounced his praise for Chen as his doctoral student and the quality of his completed research.

At the outset, Brierly made it clear why this was timely research and an important publication: “Although Recognition has probably been more discussed among international lawyers in recent years than any other part of the international legal system, the controversy which still exists as to its nature and effects is a sufficient justification, if one should seem to be needed, for another book on the subject.”Footnote ¹⁰⁸ After all, the controversy over the competing constitutive or declaratory theory was—as aptly put by Chen in his own words—the “fundamental cleavage between those who regard the State as the ultimate source of international rights and duties, and those who regard it as being under a system of law which determines its rights and duties”.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Brierly was effusive in his praise of the superior quality of Chen's work: “Dr. Chen has adduced powerful arguments to prove, firstly, that if the former theory [constitutive theory] is consistent with itself, it must logically lead to a denial of the obligatory character of international law, and, secondly, that the balance of authority in State practice and in the jurisprudence of courts is strongly in favour of the latter [declaratory theory].”Footnote ¹¹⁰ Besides Chen's contribution to the doctrinal analysis of recognition, Brierly also asserted that Chen's monograph had made an equally profound contribution to the practice of international law. “Dr. Chen's book”, he wrote, “will be useful for the full and scholarly examination which he has made of the abundant materials to be found in the practice of States, in judicial decisions, and in the literature of the subject.”Footnote ¹¹¹ To most effectively tackle the often conflicting and indecisive problem in the doctrine of recognition, Brierly took the view that the best and most basic methodology would be to conduct “scientific determination of the law as it exists with all its imperfections and uncertainties”.Footnote ¹¹² He believed that Chen's monograph made the cut in this respect. Recognition was one of the topics for which the newly founded International Law Commission, under the auspices of the United Nations, was hoping to prepare a codifying draft. Brierly emphasized that this was a daunting task, as shown by Chen's meticulous, arduous work on this question,Footnote ¹¹³ and thought it “unwise” for the Commission “to look for quick results”.Footnote ¹¹⁴ He suggested that the Commission follow Chen's example and conduct “patient and thoroughly objective preparatory research work … on lines such as those which Dr. Chen has followed in this book”.Footnote ¹¹⁵

When Chen's book based on his dissertation was released in 1951, the lavish praise that his research had received from his supervisor and viva examiners was matched by an overwhelmingly favourable reception of the publication by German, Austrian-American, British, American, and French scholars of public international law alike.

B. The British Year Book of International Law

Eminent international lawyer Sir W. Eric BeckettFootnote ¹¹⁶ was the first to review Chen's book upon its publication in the British Year Book of International Law.Footnote ¹¹⁷ This was a leading journal of international law, then under the editorship of Hersch Lauterpacht. Its Editorial Committee consisted of well-respected legal luminariesFootnote ¹¹⁸—Brierly, Jennings, Waldock, Hugh McKinnon Wood, Gerald Gray Fitzmaurice, and Ben Atkinson Wortley—giving it the appearance of being the UK's “Who's Who in International Law”. Each year, only a small selection of books would be reviewed in the Year Book, and in 1951 Chen's newly minted monograph was one of the select few that received a highly positive review.

The reviewer, Sir Eric Beckett, had a remarkable career as a scholar and was the chief legal adviser to the UK Foreign Office from 1945 to 1953.Footnote ¹¹⁹ An outstanding graduate of Oxford University, he boasted very distinguished academic accomplishments and received almost all conceivable high honours at Oxford.Footnote ¹²⁰ In 1951, he was the UK government's agent in the high-profile Anglo-Norwegian Fisheries case before the International Court of Justice at The Hague.Footnote ¹²¹ Because of his splendid scholarly and governmental legal advisory background, Beckett's opinion of Chen's book would naturally be deemed authoritative, for he was known to be “endowed with an unusual degree of instinctive insight into any legal question, and would penetrate in a flash straight to the heart of the problem, as if by an act of vision—and seldom did he prove wrong”.Footnote ¹²² As such, his review of Chen's monograph deserves great scrutiny.

It also bears noting that back in 1947, Beckett had reviewed Lauterpacht's book on the topic of recognition in this same journal.Footnote ¹²³ At that time, when Chen first became aware of Lauterpacht's forthcoming book on recognition, he had hesitated over whether to continue his dissertation on the same subject, but eventually pressed on. In the face of such a prominent authority's publication, it would take great gumption for a budding entrant to the academic world to put forth another book on that exact topic just a few years later. Beckett, being very much satisfied with Chen's book, was thus comforted that Chen persevered and brought his research to fruition: “Every serious student of international law should be glad that Professor Chen was not deterred from publishing his book.”Footnote ¹²⁴

As an avid exponent of the declaratory theory at the doctrinal level, Beckett argued that Chen was able, and performed at times an almost brilliant task:

One common problem that bedeviled the question of recognition was the confusion between the recognition of states and the recognition of governments of states. Yet, Beckett noted that “Professor Chen sometimes separates the two issues admirably”.Footnote ¹²⁶

In the main, Beckett had a very agreeable view of Chen's work, commenting that: “With the author's main line of approach and with the bulk of the author's views in detail the reviewer finds himself in agreement.”Footnote ¹²⁷ He described Chen's book as going “over the whole field … neither theory nor practice is neglected in any aspect. The material is very full.”Footnote ¹²⁸ He was particularly impressed by Chen's meticulous research of this subject and found that such an approach in itself was already of considerable value:

That said, Beckett pointed out that Chen's approach was not above criticism. He took the position that, if Chen “may have gone a little too far in the right direction, it is perhaps because the references to practice and authority are at times rather indiscriminate”.Footnote ¹³⁰ Relatedly, Beckett notes that, with his personal knowledge of those cases, “it is at least possible to take the view that the authority cited can better be explained in another way and does not really support the view for which it is cited”.Footnote ¹³¹

Some complaints that Beckett had of the book were that:

At first glance, these pointed remarks may appear harsh, but having read Beckett's earlier review of Lauterpacht's book in 1947, one might come to learn that this terseness was merely his style of review. In fact, he was equally, if not much more, harsh on the Lauterpacht book.Footnote ¹³³ For instance, the reviewer commented, “Professor Lauterpacht spends what is possibly an excessive amount of space in criticizing the case of The Arantzazu Mendi, a case in which there was a singular unanimity of English judicial opinion”.Footnote ¹³⁴ Moreover, his other criticisms of Lauterpacht's book were even more blunt and direct:

All in all, Beckett ostensibly held a high opinion of Chen's intellectual work. In closing, Beckett openly commended Chen for his fair-mindedness and objectivity—“In fact, in the whole book, on this topic as well as others the author is remarkably objective and impartial. Further, treating the topic of the ‘doctrine of non-recognition’ (i.e. of situations brought about by violations of international law), the author takes up a reasonable (middle) position.”Footnote ¹³⁶

C. International Affairs and the International and Comparative Law Quarterly

Robert Jennings, one of Chen's viva examiners, was so impressed by Chen's work that he had no reservation in giving a glowing review of the book in a 1952 issue of International Affairs, which began with:

Jennings took the view that Chen's contribution to this topic was significant, and that his treatment of the recognition of belligerency and of the doctrine of non-recognition were particularly novel and valuable:

Jennings also spoke very highly of his senior colleague Lauterpacht's study of recognition, but he also made it clear that Chen would have a deserved place in the field and predicted with confidence that Chen's monograph would become a classic standard work on recognition:

Not all British academics saw eye to eye with Jennings. For example, one unnamed reviewer in the International and Comparative Law Quarterly faulted Chen for his infelicitous use of the English language, arguing that this hampered Chen's exposition of ideas. “Dr. Chen is not writing in his own language”, he noted, “and the reader has the sense at the end that he has often seen Dr. Chen's thought through an obscuring veil.”Footnote ¹⁴⁰ But the reviewer conceded that this was an especially valuable book—“Not the least valuable part of the book is the very extensive array of case-references and references to other authorities. This makes it one of the best books of the first approach to any question of recognition.”Footnote ¹⁴¹

D. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

Chen's monograph attracted the attention of Quincy Wright, a longtime Professor of International Law at the University of Chicago, whom Chen had initially wished to further his studies under. Wright recognized Chen's monograph as “a comprehensive exposition and analysis of the law of recognition”.Footnote ¹⁴² Furthermore, he was impressed by the meticulous way in which Chen had handled this research: “The cases and voluminous literature of the subject are cited in footnotes, and fourteen pages are devoted to a listing of the cases and literature.”Footnote ¹⁴³ But he took strong issue with Chen's position in favour of the declaratory theory, which articulated a view that states and governments possess rights and duties under international law by mere reason of their factual existence. Wright argued that “[t]his theory assumes that the interpretation of ‘facts’ is self-evident in a degree hardly justified by experience”.Footnote ¹⁴⁴ He gave several illustrations to buttress his view.Footnote ¹⁴⁵ Essentially, Wright argued against a dogmatic approach toward recognition and appeared to suggest that Chen had committed this folly. In a nutshell, Wright believed recognition was an issue subject to many complex factors, and that “[i]t is difficult, therefore, to formulate any absolute rule”.Footnote ¹⁴⁶ He took the position that “[t]he problem is one of evidence rather than of argument. In some circumstances recognition is a ‘juridical act’ implying a duty to recognise vel non and in others it ‘political act’ exercisable at discretion”, and thus he was not persuaded by Chen's exposition of the declaratory theory.Footnote ¹⁴⁷

E. Die Friedens-Warte, Archiv des Völkerrechts, and Revue Française de Science Politique

Hans Wehberg, a well-known progressive international law scholar from Germany, penned an enthusiastic review in German of Chen's monograph and could not refrain from introducing this magnum opus to German readers by “I would like to draw the attention of international law circles to this outstanding work”.Footnote ¹⁴⁸ Wehberg was invited to deliver the lecture “L'interdiction du recours à la force: le principe et les problèmes qui se posent”Footnote ¹⁴⁹ at The Hague Academy of International Law in 1951. Though it appears that Chen's work came to his attention after the lecture, he later stated that Chen's arguments in the monograph lent further support to positions he took in The Hague lecture and were a refreshing perspective. He also made clear his admiration for Chen's thorough knowledge in all areas of international law. As an admirer of Chen's “rare literary skill, [and] his excellence in the collection of cases and decisions”,Footnote ¹⁵⁰ he was impressed by the maturity of Chen's judgement in analyzing the copious materials. In the end, he claimed that “Chen will have to be remembered as a great scholar. We certainly expect to see some valuable publications from him.”Footnote ¹⁵¹

Hans-Jürgen Schlochauer, a German Professor of International Law at Cologne University, was inclined to agree with Lauterpatcht's analysis of the question of recognition. When reviewing Chen's book, he touched upon a few weaknesses of the work and regretted that it only focused on American and English practice.Footnote ¹⁵² However, at the end of his review, he stated in unmistakable terms the significant value of Chen's book: “In spite of these objections, the work is an invaluable material, thanks to the abundant, carefully documented events … it represents a valuable addition to Lauterpacht's book.”Footnote ¹⁵³

Alexandre-Charles Kiss, a Hungarian-born French scholar, who later became a leading authority on international environmental law, reviewed the book in a French publication. He highlighted a unique contribution made by Chen's work: unlike previous scholars, Chen specifically dealt with the recognition of belligerency and insurgency, providing a new contribution to an issue rarely treated in international law by publicists.Footnote ¹⁵⁴

F. Harvard Law Review

Josef Laurenz Kunz, an Austrian-American jurist, and a disciple of Hans Kelsen, who was then Professor of International Law at the University of Toledo, also proffered a review of Chen's monograph. Kunz had published a monograph on the same subject in 1928 entitled Die Anerkennung von Staaten und Regierungen im Völkerrecht [The Recognition of States and Governments in International Law].Footnote ¹⁵⁵ In his own monograph, he had argued that, “in positive international law the declaratory, as opposed to the constitutive, theory prevails and there is no duty to recognise, no right to be recognised”.Footnote ¹⁵⁶ As an expert in this field, he had admiration for Chen's careful research. “All the wealth of literature as well as the rich practice of States and jurisprudence of courts concerning the law of recognition”, he wrote, “has been used by the author in the preparation of this valuable contribution to the material on the subject.”Footnote ¹⁵⁷ He took the view that Lauterpacht's book

Kunz argued that, on the latter point, Chen saw eye to eye with Lauterpacht, while combating the constitutive theory.Footnote ¹⁵⁹

Kunz took issue with Chen's fundamental argument that exposition of the constitutive theory “must lead to a denial of the obligatory character of international law, because it is only the outcome of legal positivism”.Footnote ¹⁶⁰ In his view, this was an incorrect proposition, and thus Chen's criticisms of Kelsen and Lauterpacht were unjustified because, in their defense of the constitutive theory “both assert the supremacy of international law”.Footnote ¹⁶¹

Nevertheless, he stated in unequivocal terms the valuable contribution made by Chen's monograph: “much of what is contained in this book will be unacceptable to many of the specialists in this field. But this is to be expected in the treatment of a problem on which there is considerable disagreement, and the book is nonetheless a valuable contribution to the already copious literature on the subject.”Footnote ¹⁶²