N.Z.-born legal expert dead

Press, 15 June 1979, Page 14

N.Z.-born legal expert dead

NZPA London A New Zealand-born expert in international law. Professor Dani el O’Connell, has died at his home in Oxford. He was 54. Professor O’Connell, who was Chichele professor of public international law at Oxford, was “Perhaps the most distinguished international lawyer of his generation,’’ says the “Daily Telegraph.” His standard textbook was used as an authority in the International Court of Justice at The Hague as well as in Britain and New Zealand. Bom in Auckland, Professor O’Connell was educated at the University of Auckland and Cambridge, where he graduated Ph.D. and L.L.D. and was emitted as a barrister-at-law to one of the London Inns of Court, the Middle Temple. He joined the staff of 'Adelaide University in 1952 as a reader in law, and was professor of international law there

from 1962 until he moved to All Souls College, Oxford, in 1972 for his last appointment. He became the first Roman Catholic to be appointed to a chair at All Souls since the Reformation in the sixteenth century.

He had also been adviser on international law to several Commonwealth Governments and served terms as visiting professor at American Universities, including Harvard and Georgetown. His classic work, “The Law of State Succession” was published in 1956, but he wrote several books after that including, as a sideline, a study of Cardinal Richelieu.

The “Telegraph” quoted a colleague of Professor O’Connell’s, Professor Ingrid de Lupis, as saying: "He will be sadly missed by international lawyers. He will be remembered not only as the most outstanding international ’.awer of his day. but for his generosity and good heart.”