CYIL 2012

PROFESSOR VLADISLAV DAVID ON HIS 85 TH BIRTHDAY PROFESSOR VLADISLAV DAVID ON HIS 85 TH BIRTHDAY

We are pleased to honor Professor Vladislav David on his 85th birthday. Professor David was born on 12 August 1927 in Brno. Although his beloved mother wanted him to be a priest, in the light of a horrific personal experience from the Second World War, he decided to be a lawyer. He was motivated by desire to help people and believed that spreading ideals of justice achieved through law will prevent any atrocities, such as those of the world war, to happen again. In 1946, after completing secondary school, he enrolled at the Law Faculty in Brno, where he met leading persons of Czechoslovakian jurisprudence, such as František Weyr, Hynek

Bulín or Jiří Cvetler. He attended lectures of Professor Bohuslav Ečer dedicated to prosecution of war criminals, which attracted and intensified his interest in international law. Under their influence he stayed at the faculty as an assistant of Professor Bulín. Unfortunately, Faculty of Law in Brno was entirely closed in 1950. Professor David then gave thought to continuation of his academic career in Prague, but this idea was never realized. He got married and cared about his family. More or less, he resigned from the legal profession and pursued journalism. His interest in international relations and international law was nevertheless not diminished. After the changing of political circumstances he, as a student of Professor Cvetler, participated in the restoration of the Law Faculty in Brno. He became a senior lecturer, and later the head, at the Department of International Law. In 1975 he defended his dissertation thesis at the Law Faculty of Comenius University in Bratislava, entitled ‘On Certain Questions of West Berlin Legal Status’ ( K některým otázkám právního statutu Západního Berlína ). On the basis of his work ‘International Crimes and Their Legal Consequences’ ( Mezinárodní zločiny a jejich právní následky ) Vladislav David was awarded the degree doctor scientarium in 1981. In the same year, he was appointed professor of public international law after publication of a work focused on one of his favorite topics: ‘State Responsibility for International Wrongful Acts’ ( Odpovědnost států za mezinárodně protiprávní chování ). In these years, he also held lectures at the Law Faculty of Charles University in Prague and

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