Otfried Nippold

Otfried Nippold
Born	May 21, 1864 Wiesbaden, Germany
Died	July 27, 1938 Switzerland
Nationality	Germany
Occupation	Educator, lawyer
Known for	Contributions to international law and his participation in the creation of the League of Nations

Otfried Nippold (May 21, 1864 - July 27, 1938) was a German-Swiss jurist, pacifist and internationalist.^[1] He was also an academic and a prolific author.

Nippold was born in Wiesbaden, Germany as the son of Professor Friedrich Nippold of the University of Bern and the University of Jena.^[2] He attended gymnasium in Burgdorf and in Bern and studied law at the University of Bern, University of Halle, University of Tübingen and at the University of Jena. At the Jena, he earned his doctorate in 1886.^[3]

In 1889, Nippon was invited by the Japanese government as a foreign advisor (O-yatoi gaikokujin).^[4] He taught at the Law School of the University of Tokyo.^[5]

On his return to Europe on the conclusion of his three year contract, he worked as a lawyer in Thun and Bern and acquired Swiss citizenship in 1905. The same year, he passed his habilitation in international law at the University of Bern. After a brief stay in Frankfurt he returned to Switzerland after the outbreak of the First World War.

Following the war, he became President of the High Court of the Territory of the Saar Basin in Saarlouis in 1921.^[6] In 1927, he had become a professor of the University of Bern, and returned to Switzerland to assume his seat in 1934. He died in 1938 in Switzerland

Legal theorist

Nippold was one of the first to propose a league of nations. His book, Development of International Law After the World War, was drafted during the First World War. In this text, Nippold argued that the conflict created a need for a radical reinterpretation of the law of war. He reasoned that modern war cannot be given the character of a legal institution because it is really a negation of law; and therefore, war itself is an illustration of "self-help" on the part of the aggressor.^[7]

Nippold was a leader in the slow transformation of treaties from bilateral alliances or trade agreements to more "normative" instruments; and in the 20th century, there came to be a perceived distinction between regular treaties and "law-making" or "quasi-legislative" conventions. In 1894, Nippold summarized a point-of-view which would continue to evolve: "International treaties in their totality will be the Law-book of international law."^[8]

Selected works

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• 1893 -- Wanderungen durch Japan. Briefe und Tagebuchblätter (Hikes through Japan. Letters and diary pages). Jena: Mauke.
• 1904 -- Die Entwicklung Japans in den letzten fünfzig Jahren (The development of Japan during the last fifty years). Bern: Wys.
• 1905 -- Ein Blick in das europafreie Japan (A glimpse into the Europe-free Japan). Frauenfeld: Huber.
• 1908 -- Die zweite Haager Friedenskonferenz (The Second Hague Peace Conference). Leipzig, München: Duncker & Humblot.
• 1917 -- Die Gestaltung des Völkerrechts nach dem Weltkriege, (The Development of International Law after the World War.)
• 1920 -- Deutschland und das Völkerrecht: Vol. I, Die Grundsätze der deutschen Kriegführung; Die Verletzung der Neutralität Luxemburgs und Belgiens

Notes

1. ^ Root, Elihu. (1912). Towards Making Peace Permanent (Nobel Peace Prize Lecture), Note 10.
2. ^ Nakai Akio. "Otfried Nippold und der Erste Weltkrieg: Kriegsursache und Kriegsschuld nach einem Schweizer Rechtsgelehrten" ("Otfried Nippold and the First World War: Causes and Costs of War parsed by a Swiss Lawyer"), Studien des Instituts für die Kultur der deutschsprachigen Länder. Vol.3, pp. 51-52.
3. ^ Nakai, p. 52.
4. ^ Nakai, p. 52; Schenk, Paul-Christian. (1997). Der deutsche Anteil an der Gestaltung des modernen japanischen Rechts- und Verfassungswesens: deutsche Rechtsberater im Japan der Meiji-Zeit, pp. 249, 338.
5. ^ Nakai, p. 52.
6. ^ Schenk, p. 338.
7. ^ Development of International Law After the World War, Hein Cite. Vo. 43, No. 204 (2004), p. 2.
8. ^ Koskenniemi, Martti. "International Legislation Today: Limits and Possibilities," Wisconsin International Law Review (2008). Vol. 23, No. 1, p. 67. OCLC 10030538

References

• Haberman, Frederick W. (1972). Nobel Lectures, Peace 1901-1925. Amsterdam: Elsevier. 10-ISBN 0-444-40853-3; 13-ISBN 978-0-444-40853-2; OCLC 752361
• Nippold, Otfried. (1923). The Development of International Law after the World War. Oxford: Clarendon Press. OCLC 3064086
• Schenk, Paul-Christian. (1997). .Der deutsche Anteil an der Gestaltung des modernen japanischen Rechts- und Verfassungswesens: deutsche Rechtsberater im Japan der Meiji-Zeit. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. 10-ISBN 3-515-06903-8; 13-ISBN 978-3-515-06903-8; OCLC 37296432 (German)
• Thier, Andreas: Nippold, Otfried. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 19. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, p. 284. (German)

External links

• Otfried Nippold in the German National Library catalogue (German)
• National Diet Library (Japan): "Die Wahrheit uber die Ursachen des Europaischen Krieges" : Japan, der Beginn des Ersten Weltkriegs und die volkerrechtliche Friedenswahrung / Otfried Nippold ; herausgegeben von Harald Kleinschmidt und eingeleitet von Akio Nakai. (German)

Persondata
Name	Nippold, Ottfried
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	May 21, 1864
Place of birth	Wiesbaden, Germany
Date of death	July 27, 1938
Place of death	Switzerland