Professor James Crawford (1948-2021)
It is with great sadness that the College notes the death of Honorary Fellow Professor James Crawford.
Professor Crawford was elected a Fellow of °µÍø½ûÇø in 1992 on his appointment to the Whewell Professorship of International Law. He was Director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law from 1997 to 2003 and again from 2007 to 2010, having served as Co-Director from 1995-1997. He was elected to an Honorary Fellowship in 2015, when he left Cambridge to take up the role of Judge of the International Court of Justice.
Professor Crawford was the first Australian member of the United Nations International Law Commission (ILC) and in that capacity was responsible for the ILC’s work on the International Criminal Court (1994) and for the second reading of the ILC Articles on State Responsibility (2001). Alongside many other academic distinctions, he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2000 and was awarded the Hudson Medal by the American Society of International Law in 2012.
In addition to scholarly work on statehood, collective rights, investment law, and international responsibility, he appeared in more than 40 cases before the International Court of Justice and other international tribunals.
An interview with Professor Crawford about his life and work can be found on the
