On this day in ...... 1838, the namesake of a Dutch research consortium familiar to international lawyers all over -- Tobias Michael Carel Asser (left) -- was born in Amsterdam into a family of jurists. He himself became a lawyer, then began teaching law, and eventually devoted himself to international law as a professor at what became the University of Amsterdam. His belief that interstate dialogue would serve global peace led him to spearhead a number of landmark private and public international law conferences at The Hague. Asser also served as a governmental legal adviser and diplomat, inter alia as the Dutch delegate to the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 (prior posts here and here), and he was an inaugural member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. On account of these contributions, Asser shared the 1911 Nobel Peace Prize; he died in 1913 at The Hague. In 1965, the law faculties of universities in Amsterdam, Groningen, Leiden, Nijmegen, Rotterdam, Tilburg, and Utrecht founded the Hague-based T.M.C. Asser Instituut in his name.
(Prior April 28 posts are here, here, and here)
