INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

The Squire Law Library has existed since 1904, and it has occupied three sites: Downing Street (till 1935); The Cockerell Building, Old Schools (1935–95); and West Road (1995-present), but until the mid-1950s, there was no designated collection space for International Law materials. Prior to this, the Whewell professors had their own collections, while the arrival of Harold Gutteridge as Professor of Comparative Law in 1930 saw a nucleus of international books develop in his room in the mezzanine of the Downing Street library. Similarly, when Hersch Lauterpacht became Whewell Professor in 1937, international material tended to be concentrated in his room 6 of the Cockerell Building.

Finally a space was designated within the Squire Law Library for Foreign & International Law in 1957, and in 1962 the Sir Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Room was created for this purpose. In the mid-70s, Professor Parry arranged for the whole of the 1^st floor in the Cockerell Building to be set aside for these collections. Currently, the 3^rd floor of the Sir David Williams Building on West Road houses both Foreign and International materials.

Collection development policy has been driven by Faculty interests, especially those of the incumbent of the Whewell Chair of International Law, which was established in 1868. Since WWII, the main growth areas have been in Human Rights, Law of the Sea, Trade Law, and Investment Law, largely prompted by UN/EU/global trade-centric studies. Since 1982, journal acquisition policy has been increasingly dictated by the University Library, especially since 2003, when the UL Journals Co-ordination Scheme was piloted. After the 1980s, material has been increasingly of an electronic nature. Establishment of a specialist post (1997) singled out International Law as the premier component of the Squire Law Library collections. Currently ~30% of both Faculty staff and research students engage in International Law.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Cambridge's University Library (UL) is one of the world's foremost university and research libraries. It came into existence in the 15^th century (Steiner Reference Steiner, Gödan and Knudsen1991, p. 248, citing Oates Reference Oates1986), and with approximately 8 million volumes, 120,000 e-journal titles and numerous materials in other formats. The UL is a major scholarly resource, not only for the whole of the University of Cambridge's academic community, but also for researchers nationally and internationally. The UL is one of the six legal deposit libraries in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and has held this copyright/legal status since 1710. An account of the 18–19^th century development of the University Library can be found in McKitterick (1986). It consists currently of the main University Library complex (which it occupied in 1934) and twenty-one affiliated libraries.

The Squire Law Library (SLL) is the library of the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge, and is affiliated to the UL. It has one of the most comprehensive collections of legal materials in the UK and is large, even by global standards. Although now an affiliated library, the SLL, is, effectively, and was developed originally as, the research and teaching collection of the Faculty of Law at the university. Consequently, the composition of its holdings reflects the interests of personnel who have graced the Faculty over the last century or more.

The study of Canon and Civil Law was well-established at Cambridge by 1250 (Baker Reference Baker1996), but until the Squire Law Library was named by Edward VII in 1904, and opened its doors to readers in 1906, law books were contained in the main UL collections, under conditions that F W Maitland described in letters dated 1905 as “exceedingly bad”, and “in the manner of foreign law books and periodicals it is shamefully poor” (Fifoot Reference Fifoot1965, p. 336; Steiner Reference Steiner, Gödan and Knudsen1991 footnote 6).

International Law was established as a specialist field of study at Cambridge with the creation of the Whewell Chair of International Law by the Trustees of the estate of the polymath William Whewell (1794–1866) in 1868Footnote ¹ . It was further strengthened by the creation of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law in 1983 in honour of the seventh incumbent of the Whewell chair, Sir Hersch LauterpachtFootnote ² , who went on to become President of the International Court of Justice. The importance of International Law within the context of the SLL was recognised by the Faculty and Law Sub-Syndicate with appointment in 1997 of the author (Lesley Dingle) as the first specialist librarian at the SLL, and first in International Law in a UK university library.

Collections of legal materials, including some on International Law, also reside in college libraries, and Steiner (1991, p. 248) particularly mentions Downing, Gonville & Caius (early law books), St John's (early law books), Trinity Hall (old Canon Law), and Trinity College (old Canon Law).

DEVELOPMENT OF THE SQUIRE LAW LIBRARY

Good accounts of the history of the SLL have been given by Steiner (1991) and Baker (1996). In addition, I have gleaned information from the minute books of the Law Faculty Library Committee (for the period 1925–1974), and the University Library Law Sub-Syndicate (1982–2015). Also, I have used the original Accession Register (Vols 1–2) which covers the period 1929–1956.

To understand the circumstances under which the International Law collections have been amassed, I include a brief survey of the physical facilities of the SLL, the Librarians who have guided the development of it, and the Faculty staff who constituted the Library Committee.

SLL LIBRARIANS

Since its inception, there have been eight Librarians at the helm of the Squire Law Library, and their status has reflected the management structure of the library. The first six incumbents were appointed by the Law Faculty Special Board (called the Faculty Board after 1926), and were members of Faculty: Regius Professor of Law, Edwin Charles Clark (1905–07), Mr Austin H. Johnson (1907–29), Dr Tom Ellis Lewis (1929–1968), Mr William T. Major (1968–70), Dr John Baker (1970–73), and Mr Gordon G. E. Hughes (1979–82 - he was Deputy Librarian-in-charge 1973–79). During this period of Faculty management, the Chairman of the administrative Library Committee was also Chairman of the Faculty Board, until 1967, when Professor Clive Parry took the position, more or less continuously until his death in 1982. This is significant, as he was at the time Professor of International Law.

After the incorporation of the SLL into the UL, the position of Librarian has been on the staff of the UL, with the status of Under-Librarian: Mr Keith J. A. McVeigh (1983–95), and Mr David Wills (1996-present).

Of these SLL Librarians, the longevity of T Ellis Lewis (TEL) is particularly noteworthy (39 years), while Johnson (22), and Wills (21+) have also had long tenures. Although Lewis undertook both research and teaching in the Faculty, particularly on Tort, and under his stewardship the SLL expanded greatly in size and influence (see Steiner Reference Steiner, Gödan and Knudsen1991 p. 268 etc), he does not seem to have had a major influence on the collection development of International Law.

In contrast, Dr Lewis's replacement, Mr Major, was an international lawyer and teacher, and it was he who supervised the expansion of the SLL into the ground floor area of the Cockerell Building. However, his potential to expand the International Law collections was not realised, when he resigned after only two years, to return to teaching in London.

In recent years (2015), the status of the SLL has altered further, by becoming an affiliated library of the UL (in contrast to a dependent library). This has entailed a further integration of collection management, particularly with regard to digital services, serial publications, electronic books, and the introduction of the Open Access regime.

LIBRARY COMMITTEE: Members, chairmen, accession records (1904–74)

Since its establishment, the running of the SLL and, inter alia, purchase of stock, has been guided in various ways by appointees. Initially, this consisted of Professor Clark, Chairman of the Special Board, who reported directly to the University authorities. He was assisted by Mr A H Johnson, who was the Custodian and undertook shelving and cataloguing. Steiner (1991 p. 257) speculated that F. W. MaitlandFootnote ¹¹ may have had some early input into the planning stages, despite his serious illness. After Clark's chairmanship, professors KennyFootnote ¹² (1914–18), and BucklandFootnote ¹³ (1918–25) would have been responsible for the SLL's administration in their capacities as Faculty chairmen, both of whom were assisted in the day to day running by Mr Johnson, who by this stage, had been appointed Librarian.

It was only with the Faculty chairmanship of Professor HazeltineFootnote ¹⁴ that formal meetings to discuss and organise SLL affairs were initiated by the Law Faculty Special Board, with the appointment of a professorial committee. Its first meeting was 25^th February 1925, and it consisted of Hazeltine (Chairman), with Kenny, Buckland and Pearce-HigginsFootnote ¹⁵ . Despite his obvious interest in proceedings, it was not until the Library Committee meeting of 22^nd November 1928, that the SL Librarian was admitted to these meetings, although from then, the incumbent was an ever-present member until the committee was disbanded in 1982. From 1904, Chairmanship of the Library Committee went with Chairmanship of the Faculty until the end of Professor Parry's Faculty stint (1968–70), when it passed, mainly, to Dr (later Professor) Lipstein for four years, rather than Dr R. N. Gooderson (Faculty Chairman 1970–73), and Professor Stein (1973–76). (Gooderson attended 9 meetings 1954–56, and Stein 6 meetings 1970–74, but neither in the Library Committee chair). The record of Library Committee minutes ceased in 1974. The last meeting recorded was 11^th March, when those present were Professor Lipstein (Chairman), Professor Parry, Mr Prichard, Mr Glazebrook, Dr Baker, Mr Hughes (Temporary Librarian-in-Charge), and Messrs Bellis and FinnFootnote ¹⁶ (student representatives). At that meeting, two sub-committees were established, one to oversee acquisitions (Finn, Hopkins and Prichard), and the other staff (Baker, Glazebrook and Stein).

Discussions I have had with Professor Baker, Mr McVeigh, and Mr David Wills indicate that meetings under the chairmanship of Professor Parry continued until 1982, when administration of the SLL was transferred to the UL. However, there are no (surviving) details of attendees or proceedings for these eight years.

Between 1925 and 1974 (ie the period for which we have records of the SL Library Committee), a grand total of fifty-two appointees attended meetings, with Dr T Ellis Lewis (64 meetings) by far the longest-serving member (1929–68). Other doyens were professors Lipstein (46, 1947–74), Hamson (40, 1947–70), Emlyn Wade (36, 1929–62), and Patrick Duff (35, 1947–66).

The Library records also contain two Accession Registers. These were commenced only in 1929, and volumes acquired after this date were numbered sequentially from 1 to 14,482. This gives a detailed record of stock growth for the period 1929 to 1956 (July 26^th), which I show on a graph of calendar year (Fig. 4). The Register started when Hazeltine was Committee Chairman, but there is no mention in the minutes of this having been initiated, and similarly there is no mention in the minutes as to why the Register was discontinued at the end of the academic year 1955–56 (Hamson was Chairman of both the Faculty and Library Committee at this time).

Figure 4.

Graph showing accessions to the Squire Law Library, as recorded in the Accession Register for the period 1929–56. Blue [diamonds] = total volumes, Red [squares] = Transfers from UL. Number of volumes is shown on left hand axis. Dates are shown on horizontal axis. The tenure of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht as Whewell Professor is shown in orange, while the duration of the Second World War is outlined in red.

The graph of the number of acquisitions (Fig. 4) shows that over the twenty-seven years , a period of low growth in the early 30s, was followed by increased acquisition in the late 30s. Annual growth rose from a low of 322 volumes in 1933 to over 700 in 1937. The annual tally of acquisitions fell below 300 volumes only 4 times between 1929 and 1956, unsurprisingly, all during the war (1942–44), when it reached a low of 187 in 1943. It rose steadily in the post-war years to 729 in 1955 (the 1956 value of 530 is a part calendar year). This history is punctuated by two sharp peaks: 1938 (1488), and 1948 (1147). The former coincided with extensive use of Whewell Fund monies, and the latter, a single purchase of 612 volumes of Law Reports covering 1865–1947.

During the period covered by the Registers, the total SLL holdings rose from ~20,000 to ~34,482 (i.e. including the 14,482 in the Register). This comprised a mix of donations from individuals, Government departments, and colonial and dominion administrations, purchases from commercial booksellers and late faculty members’ estates, as well as exchanges with the Cambridge Law Journal. In addition, there were constant transfers from the UL. In his account of the history of the SLL, Steiner (1991 p. 277–81) discussed the transfer of UL books, and comments that after the initial allocation of ~8,000 17th-19th century volumes in 1905 (mainly law reports, 2/3 of which had been returned by 1970), only “material received under the Copyright Act” was transferred. He also noted that items pertaining to “Roman law, legal history, ecclesiastical law, International Law, constitutional law, administrative law, and jurisprudence” were never included. In this sense, the SLL International Law stock did not directly benefit from Cambridge University being a designated copyright deposit library.

I have tallied the record of transfers from the UL to the SLL in the Registers, and over the period 1929–56, 6,214 volumes were transferred (43% of the books acquired by the SLL) (see Fig. 4). Relative numbers acquired in particular years varied from 97% (1950) to 20% (1938). Actual lowest numbers were during the war (86 in 1943).

Throughout the period recorded in the Registers, much business was conducted with the local book seller Bowes & Bowes, (eventually taken over by W H Smith, 1953), on the site of the present CUP bookshop. Interestingly, for a short period during the war (1941) many donations and purchases were made by and through “A Lieck Esq” (perhaps when B&B found it difficult to get books?), although I cannot find who or what this vendor was. It is also salutary to see that during the war, purchases of law journals continued from societies and institutions in Canada, and the USA – given the fraught military conditions in the Atlantic, and priorities of wartime trade.

Finally, a poignant feature of the SL Library Committee minutes book (volume 1) is worth comment. This is the record for the meeting on January 26^th 1939, which is signed by the chairman of the next meeting as “accepted”. The latter is dated March 19^th 1947. There is no mention whatsoever of the eight years of war, mayhem, and changes in world order (including the establishment of the UN) that the intervening years encompassed. The fortunes of the SLL seem, on the surface, to have been unaffected by them, with the Committee taking up the baton of administration again without faltering. The world as they knew it had tottered on the brink, but the minutes book had been dusted off and continued, without comment.

For the record, the members present at these two meetings were: 1939 – Bailey (Chairman), Hazeltine, Lewis, Winfield, Lauterpacht, and Wade; 1947 – Wade (Chairman), Lewis, Hamson, Lauterpacht, Lipstein, Duff, and Bailey.

UNIVERSITY LIBRARY: (Law Sub-Syndicate (1982–2015))

During the most recent period, since the SLL has been a dependent/affiliate library of the UL (1982–2015), the fortunes of the SLL have been guided by a board entitled the Cambridge University Library Law Sub-Syndicate. This has held 58 meetings over the intervening 34 years. It met for the first time on 4^th Nov 1982. The UL Librarian and SLL Librarian have been ever presentFootnote ¹⁷ . The incumbent Whewell Professors (Bowett and Crawford) were not on the board as a matter of course, and Bowett did not attend one meeting. Crawford, however was appointed in 1992 (when he became Whewell Professor), and was made Chairman in 1993. He retired from the Sub-Syndicate in 1996, but rejoined in 2005. The other members were from the UL and the Law Faculty, and in later years the latter have become prominent.

Issues of International Law collection development have figured only intermittently throughout this period, but some items stand out and are worth recording. Large fund-donations and purchases are recorded in the period 1992–94 of EU-related materials with the establishment of CELS (Centre for European Legal Studies), coinciding with the prominent Sub-Syndicate membership of Professor Bill Cornish. This was supplemented by two large grants to the SLL by the Board of the Cambridge Law Journal in 2008 & 2010, which were also used to bolster the SLL's Commonwealth collections. The latter had also been supplemented by a series of donations from the Smuts Fund over the period 1986–2003.

A significant development was precipitated by an adverse report from the first HEFCE quality assessment survey which was communicated to the Sub-Syndicate in Nov 1993. While the Faculty was rated as “highly excellent”, the SLL was criticised for its collections and financial state. An Action Group was set up to address the matter in February 1994. Notwithstanding the disruption of the Faculty and SLL decamping from the Old Schools site to West Road in 1995, the upshot was that with the installation of the new SLL Librarian (Mr Wills), he and Mr Zawada were funded to visit various North American law libraries in 1996. The Whewell Professor Crawford was then Chairman of the Sub-Syndicate. One result was a recommendation by Mr David Wills to appoint a specialist Foreign & International Law librarian to upgrade these collections. The author was appointed in 1997.

RECORDS OF ACCESSIONS

On the growth of the SLL collections, the 1925–74 Library Committee minutes intermittently recorded the increase in size of the total SLL holdings (but there was no separate record of the growth of the International Law book collection). Incorporating data cited in Steiner (1991), the best record I can construct for the long-term growth of the overall SLL collections is: 1904–~8,000Footnote ¹⁸ ; 1929–~20,000Footnote ¹⁹ , 1956–34,482Footnote ²⁰ , 1957–38,500Footnote ²¹ ; 1969–61,435Footnote ²² ; 1991–110,000Footnote ²³ ; and 2016–190,000Footnote ²⁴ .

INTERNATIONAL LAW COLLECTIONS

Tracing the fortunes of the “International Law” collections is not straightforward because historically, no distinction has been drawn between it and “Foreign Law”. The position I hold epitomises this: “Foreign and International Law Librarian”.

Until the mid – 50s, collections of such materials had no designated place within the SLL. In the Downing Street library, Kurt Lipstein remembers their being housed along with Professor Gutteridge in the mezzanine floor above the main library hall. Gutteridge was primarily a comparative lawyer, and much of the material he used was his own, but it was not until 1954 that there is a record in the Library Committee minutes (March 11th) that SLL bought some of these for £47, although the quantity involved must have been smallFootnote ²⁵ (Gutteridge died in 1953).

By this time, the library had moved to the Old Schools (1935), a change which coincided with the appointment of McNair in the Whewell chair. McNair left after two years to become Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool University (1937–45)Footnote ²⁶ . Almost from the outset of his Whewell tenure, Sir Hersch LauterpachtFootnote ²⁷ based himself in room 6 in the Old Schools library area (next to Kurt Lipstein in room 5). As recounted by Judge Stephen Schwebel in his 2009 ESA interview, Lauterpacht's room “hardly admitted more than a desk and his chair, and a chair for his guests….he didn't do his work there, he did his scholarly work at [Trinity], but he received students there”Footnote ²⁸ . Sir Hersch tended to corral the International Law books within this area, but the first mention of a designated area for the International Law material was a recommendation in 1957 by Eli Lauterpacht (his son) for a table to be set aside in Bay 1 of the first floor hall in the Cockerell Building to house United Nations materials. This table is currently in the Lauterpacht Centre.Footnote ²⁹

In 1959, the SLL expanded into the library space on the ground floor of the Old Schools previously occupied by the Modern Language collections, and a request was made for part of this to be designated for International Law. This suggestion was supported by Professor Robbie Jennings, and in 1961 it was agreed with financial support from Lady Lauterpacht and her son Eli (who was a University lecturer at the time) that this would be turned into the Sir Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Room to hold International Law materials. It was opened in 1962.

International (& Foreign) materials have been housed separately ever since, and a further demarcation was achieved by Professor Clive Parry. He was Chairman of the Library Committee from 1975 until 1982 and he arranged for the concentration of the International (& Foreign) collections, in the teeth of some Faculty opposition, on the first floor of the Cockerell Building at the expense of English Law materials. The latter were moved to the ground floorFootnote ³⁰ . In the current David Williams Building on West Road, International (& Foreign) materials lie on the 3^rd and 2^nd floors.

Meanwhile, the opening of the Lauterpacht Centre in Cranmer Road in 1983Footnote ³¹ superceded the Memorial Room as a focus of intellectual activity for visiting scholars. The Centre's library has an ad hoc collection of international legal materials, housed mainly in the Old Library and Finley Library at No 5 Cranmer RoadFootnote ³² . Many items have been donated from the libraries of eminent scholars, but the collection does not duplicate the resources of the SLL. Researchers and visitors mainly use the latter as a source of paper and electronic data.

WHEWELL PROFESSORS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

The acquisition history of International Law materials is equally elusive, but clearly its trajectory has been primarily influenced by the succession of eminent scholars and practitioners who have held the Whewell Chair of International Law, along with other international lawyers who have graced the Faculty over the last century.

Since the establishment of the Whewell professorship in 1868Footnote ³³ , there have been eleven incumbents: Sir William Vernon Harcourt (1869–87); Sir Henry Maine (1887–88); John Westlake (1888–1908); Lassa Francis Lawrence Oppenheim (1908–19); Alexander Pearce Higgins (1920–35); Lord Arnold McNair (1935–37); Sir Hersch Lauterpacht (1937–55); Sir Robert Jennings (1955–81); Sir Derek Bowett (1981–91); James Crawford (1992–2015); Eyal Benvenisti (2016–).

Apropos the International Law collections, it is germane that, with the exception of occasions for absence of leave etc, the incumbent Whewell Professor was also ever-present on the Library Committee between 1925 and 1973. This encompassed the tenures of professors Pearce-Higgins (15 meetings, 1920–33), Arnold McNair (14, 1927–37), Hersch Lauterpacht (9, 1938–54), and Robbie Jennings (27, 1957–73). Other noted international/foreign lawyers appointed by the Faculty to serve on the Library Committee were professors Lipstein (46 meetings, 1947–74), Parry (11, 1966–82), Eli Lauterpacht (10, 1963–68), Gutteridge (7, 1930–38), and Ivor Jennings (4, 1964–65).

When the first two Whewell incumbents (Sir William Harcourt and Sir Henry Maine) were in place, the SLL had not opened, while in 1906 John Westlake was near the end of his tenure (1908). In contrast, both Oppenheim and Pearce-Higgins served their entire tenures during the time the SLL was based in Downing Street.

Lassa Oppenheim, after he came from Germany in 1895, lectured at LSE prior to his move to Cambridge. None of his collection of ~1200 volumes on International Law appear to have come to the SLL, as they were purchased from his widow in 1923 by the Trustees of the Edward Fry Library of International Law at the LSEFootnote ³⁴ . When this was disbanded, most of its contents were presumably integrated into the International Law section of the present LSE Law LibraryFootnote ³⁵ . As the SL Library Committee did not exist in his day, Oppenheim's contributions to the SLL collection development were not documented, but they seem to have been small, although he did edit the papers of one of his Whewell predecessors, John WestlakeFootnote ³⁶ .

Pearce-Higgins, in contrast, played an active role in the SLL, being a member of the Committee from its inception in 1925 to 1933, when he retired. He died in 1935, and one of the first acts of the then Chairman Hazeltine, and McNair, the new Whewell incumbent, was to purchase ninety-six of Pearce-Higgins books for the SLL - this would have been one of the first large acquisitions of the SLL after it had moved to its new home in the Old SchoolsFootnote ³⁷ . The bulk of these are late 19^th century – early 20^th century texts, but include the 1805 edition of Droit Maritime de l'Europe by M D A Azuni. Pearce-Higgins was a specialist in maritime International Law, and fourteen of the books acquired by the SLL related specifically to this topic. Also during Pearce-Higgins's time on the Committee, Arthur GoodhartFootnote ³⁸ (who was then Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford), was asked to provide advice on the acquisition of US material (1930 – a meeting which he attended), and this liaison continued into 1936 (by which time McNair held the Whewell chair). It was at this time (Dec 1936) that Professor Hazeltine (who was Chairman) made a gift of books relating to Air Law, and other International subjects, to the SLL.

During his tenure of the Whewell chair, Lord McNair (1935–7) attended the Library Committee five times, but prior to this appointment, he had been to eight meetings (1927–9) while the SLL was still housed in Downing Street. This was before the accessions had been recorded, but Steiner (1991) estimated that overall, the collections had grown by about 12,000 volumes between 1905 and 1929 (i.e. an average of ~500 per year, including UL transfers), the latter part of which two international lawyers (Pearce-Higgins, and McNair) had helped oversee. Also, it was while they were both on the Committee that the decision to allow the Librarian to attend meetings was taken. Further, it is likely that Pearce-Higgins would have been supportive of the move to contact Dominion administrations to donate copies of their official legal publications to the fledgling library (26^th Oct 1926 meeting). Their contribution to the SLL's overall growth seems to have been positive, though we have no evidence of particular contributions to International accessions in the 1920–30 period.

McNair was succeeded in the Whewell chair by Hersch Lauterpacht in1937 (Fig. 5). Although the latter chaired only two Library Committee meetings near the end of his tenure (Feb & Mar 1954), he attended throughout his tenure in the chair (1937–55). Lauterpacht was also one of only six Faculty members to attend meetings both pre- and post-warFootnote ³⁹ , and spent part of the war years in North America on Government Foreign Office business to advise on the Lend/Lease ProgramFootnote ⁴⁰ . Immediately after the war, and while still Whewell Professor, Sir Hersch was a Member of the British War Crimes Executive (1945–6), and attended the Nuremberg war trials (1945–9). He left Cambridge to join the bench of the ICJ in 1955.

Figure 5.

Dr Hersch Lauterpacht (later, Professor, Sir), his wife Rachel and son Elihu (later Professor, Sir) in ca. 1933, when he was a Reader in Public International Law, University of London.

Arguably, the tenure of Hersch Lauterpacht in the Whewell chair was a period during which some of the most important decisions on acquisitions in the field of International Law for the SLL were made. Also, because of the high regard in which he was, and still is, held in International Law circles, his tenure conferred on the subject the high status it continues to hold in the Faculty and SLL to this day – vide, the Lauterpacht Centre to which I have already referredFootnote ⁴¹ .

The year after his taking the Whewell chair, Lauterpacht allocated monies from the Whewell Trust Fund (use was at the discretion of the Whewell incumbent) to make significant purchases of international legal literature. Thus, in March-May 1938, the Accession Register logged 688 acquisitions, many bought from Dr Hans Preiss Booksellers, London, W.C.1Footnote ⁴² . They included 160 volumes of the League of Nations Series and Index bought from the League at a cost of £64 17s 10d. This tranche was by far the largest single purchase in the 27 years of the Accession Registers, and immeasurably boosted the International Law holdings. Further use of the Whewell fund was made by Hersch Lauterpacht in Jan 1939 (9 items), Apr 1947 (13 items) and Oct 1951 (51 items). He also made a significant acquisition in Apr 1951, when the SLL negotiated 42 volumes of the Nuremberg Trial Series (French edition) to be transferred from the University Library, while he also arranged for the purchase of 64 volumes relating to UN General Assembly, Economic, Trusteeship and Security council meetings for the late 1940s to be purchased from HM Stationery Office in Feb 1952.

Hersch Lauterpacht's huge contributions to the status of International Law at Cambridge were both physical and intangible. They came in the form of prestige, physical acquisition of materials for the SLL, and in his legacy of teaching and inspiration (both Robbie Jennings and Derek Bowett later became Whewell professors), while his son Sir Eli played a significant role in the development of the SLL in the 60–70s, and in the establishment and running of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law.

On the international stage, Hersch Lauterpacht participated actively in the transition of a world wrestling with the politics and rules of the League of Nations to the modern order dominated by the United Nations. He had personally participated and suffered in the traumatic war that brought down the old and ushered in the new. Clearly no other Whewell professor has experienced such dramatic changes in the foundations underpinning International Law, and his priorities in SLL acquisitions reflected this. Sir Hersch's papers and books are currently in the possession of the estate of his late son, Sir Eli Lauterpacht.

Robbie Jennings was awarded the Whewell chair when Hersch Lauterpacht left to join the ICJ in 1955, but did not attend a Library Committee meeting for over two years. It was during this period (Feb 1956), while Professor Hamson held the chairmanship, that Professor Emlyn Wade and Dr Lipstein undertook a survey that resulted in the SLL, on grounds of cost, elected not to “compete” with IALS in the collection of all British Commonwealth legal material, but rather to concentrate their resources on Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ceylon and South Africa. This was a significant decision, as it determined a bias that persists to the present.

Sir Robbie Jennings's tenure of the Whewell chair lasted until 1981, when he also left the University to take up a position on the bench of the ICJ, and ultimately its Presidency. Effectively, he was the last Whewell professor to serve on the Library Committee, as the SLL was absorbed into the UL in 1982. His lengthy period in the Whewell chair saw two major changes in provenance of intake for Foreign and International materials: the UN and the EEC/EU.

In 1961 Jennings pushed for UN documents to be deposited in the SLL as a matter of course, and Eli Lauterpacht was charged with looking into the matter, perhaps of getting the SLL limited “deposit” status. Resolution took a year, after which the UL acquired full access to the UN output. This persisted until the UN went online, and open access is now available. At the same time (Nov 1961), Eli Lauterpacht suggested that the SLL purchase EEC documents (UK was not then in the EEC), but the request was turned down on cost grounds – £28 to buy back parts. The Committee relented in May 1964, despite the annual cost of £80.

Acquisition of European materials remained an issue for several years, however, and in 1971 an unfavourable comparison was made to the Library Committee with the SLL's commitment to this area in comparison with the Bodleian and IALS. This was immediately prior to UK entry into the EEC, and in Mar 1973, at the prompting of Professor Peter Stein (he had joined the Committee in 1970Footnote ⁴³ ), a £5000 grant from the University Grants Committee was used to rectify the situation. Again, open access to all EU materials online has radically altered the situation.

A significant purchase of books on Public International Law was the March 1967 £1200 investment in the collection of Commonwealth constitution books of the late Professor Ivor JenningsFootnote ⁴⁴ who had served a short spell as a Committee member in 1964-early ‘65. He was a prominent constitutional lawyer who had spent much of his life in Ceylon and Malaysia.

A further development in the SLL's fortunes while Robbie Jennings was on the Committee, was the appointment in 1959 of an Assistant Librarian: Mr W A F P “Willi” SteinerFootnote ⁴⁵ , who henceforth also attended the Library Committee's meetings. Willi Steiner's lasting legacy was his effort to produce a computerised cataloguing system for SLL, which went in tandem with a new classification system for the overall collections. It is not clear from the minutes if the trial computer print-out for International Law was ever completed (May 1970), but after Willi left the SLL in 1968, his wife Barbara continued with the work for some time. Nevertheless, his unique classification system is still in use in the modern SLL.

Since 1982, and the demise of the Faculty-based Library Committee, the incumbent Whewell professor has not been officially involved in the running of the SLL. This coincided with the stewardships of Sir Derek Bowett (1981–91), James Crawford (1991–2016) and Eyal Benvenisti (2016–)Footnote ⁴⁶ .

Bowett's interests in International Law were well-explained to me when I interviewed him in 2006–7 for ESA. He described how, as a student, he had been strongly influenced by Hersch Lauterpacht in the late 40s, along with his contemporary Stephen Schwebel (whom I also interviewed later, 2009). Sir Derek's PhD thesis (undertaken at Manchester) had been on the subject of Self-Defence in International Law Footnote ⁴⁷ , after which he spent time at the UN in New York (1957–9), where he became deeply involved in negotiations surrounding the Law of the Sea Treaty. This was an interest he retained after he returned to Cambridge. He also worked for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (1966–68), and was on the spot when the 1967 Israeli/Egypt-Syria-Jordan war broke out in 1967. Human Rights in the context of war were thus another subject in which he was greatly interested.

While Robbie Jennings had been the first Whewell incumbent to operate entirely under the new world order of International Law brought about by the conflagrations of the Second World War, Bowett took over after the UN organisation had matured. By this stage it had established its political and humanitarian agencies, and had begun peace-keeping ventures. Also, the international environment was dominated by the “Cold War” between the west and the Soviet Union. Having worked in and for the UN organisation, Bowett was well-versed in its modus operandi. He actively engaged in International legal work, and was involved with litigations in nine ICJ cases, as well as numerous international boundary and land dispute arbitrationsFootnote ⁴⁸ . He also did research on the international use of force, and how to best gain access to deep-sea floor mineral resources in the world's oceans.

Apropos his role in SLL's acquisition of International Law materials, it is significant that Sir Derek never sat on an analogue of the Library Committee. By this time (i.e. post-1982) the SLL was regularly in receipt of all UN materials via subscription, and this represented a large proportion of the SLL's intake.

James Crawford became the Whewell professor in 1992, and resigned to join the bench of the ICJ in 2015. His specialities were in Public International Law, and International Arbitration. He was the second-longest serving Whewell professor (24 years) after Jennings (26 years). Professor Crawford served as Director of the Lauterpacht centre on two occasions (1997–2003, 2006–10), and engaged extensively in International Law litigation and arbitration. He appeared before the ICJ, ITLOS, ICSID and ICC tribunals, and ran an annual course for staff of the FCO, during the later years of which the writer was also involved.

Currently (from 2016), the Whewell chair is held by Eyal Benvenisti, whose special interest in International Law includes the History of International Law, particularly the Law of War, and Human Rights. He is also Director of the Lauterpacht Centre.

BRIEF HISTORY OF PRINT SERIAL INTERNATIONAL LAW ACQUISITIONS

As a metric to gauge the potential influence of Whewell incumbents on the development of the SLL International Law collections, I have analysed the development of the SLL print serial collections over time. Using data on the materials held on the SLL 3^rd Floor, I have identified 1118 print titles of Foreign and International (F&I) serials to which the law library has begun a subscription or exchange since the inception of the Whewell chair in 1869 (with Harcourt)Footnote ⁴⁹ . I have used the tenure period of each incumbent as the unit for counting. For example: the number of Marine law-related journals acquired during Bowett's tenure was 12, and during Westlake's 2 (even though Westlake's tenure was twice as long as Bowett's).

Within this data set, I have identified a total of 621 titles that I would classify as International, in contrast to Foreign lawFootnote ⁵⁰ . Thus, over the period of 146 years since Harcourt's appointment, an average of four new International Law titles a year were subscribed to. However, this figure hides a strong temporal dichotomy: before WWII this figure was 3 or less (for instance during both Westlake and Harcourt's tenures it was ~1/year), while since WWII, there has been a sharp increase from 5 new titles per annum under Lauterpacht, to 8 under Bowett and Crawford. Over the years, 347 of these titles have been discontinued, so that the current count of “active” International Law serials is 274.

Several significant changes stand out from the serials’ subscription history. Firstly, since WWII, two areas of International Law have expanded: Marine Law, and Human Rights, both I suspect are a direct consequence of the focus on them by UN agencies. Interest in Marine Law has been based primarily on the UN Law of the Sea Treaty, and disputes on issues of mineral, fishing and territorial rights. Human Rights were highlighted by the Nuremberg war trials, and since then have been an issue with all subsequent conflicts. They have now become interwoven into domestic law via the ECHR. SLL's reflection of these two areas started with Lauterpacht's involvement with early UN activities. During his tenure the combined percentage of Marine Law + Human Rights serials acquisitions increased to 12%, and since Jennings's stewardship, has never fallen below 20%. This clearly indicates the role of the UN in influencing the global legal trajectory.

Secondly, some legal preferences of individual Whewell professors can be discerned. Again, Marine Law shows that the high point of post-WWII Marine law acquisition (15% of International Law titles) was during Bowett's tenure, and we know that the Law of the Sea relating to mineral deposits and boundary issues was one of his specialities. Pre-WWII, Maritime Law was invariably concerned with navigational and military matters, and the latter was relatively strongly represented during Oppenheim's tenure, when WWI “prize”Footnote ⁵¹ topics were important legal issues (18% of the serial titles acquired during this time). Maritime Law (E0549–54 books) and Maritime War (E0552–179 books) were well-represented in his personal libraryFootnote ⁵² , and he clearly had an interest in this area. There was also some interest during Westlake's and Harcourt's time (13% & 11%, respectively). (It must be remembered, however, that pre-WWII, only 9 acquisitions of “marine” orientated serials were made over 56 years, in contrast to 46 titles over 60 years beginning with Jennings's tenure).

An interesting paradox is that although Pearce-Higgins was a recognised expert in Maritime Law (during World War I he had served as adviser in International Law and Prize law to the Procurator General and Treasury Solicitor), only one serial publication on maritime matters was acquired during his tenure (in 1924). In contrast, he presided over the acquisition of six serial publications on the (then) new, upcoming form of transport: Air Law.

Human Rights acquisitions peaked during Jennings's tenure (17%), but they were also relatively high under Lauterpacht (10%) and Crawford (13%), both of whom had interests in this area. Human Rights were not a designated category prior to WWII.

SPECIALIST LIBRARIAN POST ESTABLISHED IN 1997

The SLL's commitment to International Law as a central component of its collection development was its establishment in 1997 of a specialist post, within the UL staff structure, of the position of Foreign and International Law Librarian. It was the first of its kind in the UK academic library services. This was the result of a recommendation of the Librarian, Mr David Wills, after an inspection of various US law libraries, where International Law as a speciality, is commonplace. The writer was fortunate to be the inaugural incumbent, and my writ has been to develop the F&I law print and electronic collections. Also, I have for many years taught research sources to under- and post-graduates in the Faculty.

As an integral part of developing a scholarly base and creating unique archival resources, I founded the Eminent Scholars ArchiveFootnote ⁵³ in 2005. With the assistance of Daniel Bates (and initially the web designs of Matt Martin), we have included several noted international lawyers as interviewees: Sir Derek Bowett, Sir Eli Lauterpacht, Professor Philip Allott, Judge Stephen Schwebel, Professor Martti Koskenniemi, Dame Rosalyn Higgins, Professor Kurt Lipstein, and Sir Bob Hepple.

CURRENT INTERNATIONAL LAW RESOURCES

International Law is shelved on the 3^rd floor of the SLL in the Sir David Williams Building, along with Foreign Law material, which also occupies the 2^nd Floor.