Ian Brownlie

Sir Ian Brownlie, (19 September 1932, Liverpool – 3 January 2010, Cairo) was an English barrister and academic, specialising in international law. He was Chichele Professor of Public International Law from 1980 to 1999.

Early life and education Brownlie was born in Bootle, Liverpool; his father worked for an insurance company. He was evacuated during the Second World War to Heswell, near Wirral, going a year without any formal education after the local school was bombed. He attended Alsop High School. He then attended Hertford College, Oxford as a Gibbs Scholar in 1952 and received a first-class BA in law in 1953. Speaking of this time, C. H. S. Fifoot described Brownlie his "ablest student". He was a Humanitarian Trust Student at King's College, Cambridge in 1955 where he studied public international law. He completed his DPhil at Oxford in 1961 under the supervision of Humphrey Waldock, his thesis being later published in 1963 as International Law and the Use of Force by States. He was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain until the Soviet Union's invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Career He began his academic career at the University of Nottingham as a lecturer from 1957 to 1963. He was a fellow and tutor in law at Wadham College, Oxford from 1963 to 1976 and a University of Oxford lecturer from 1964 to 1976. In 1976, he took silk. He was appointed professor of international law at the London School of Economics between 1976 and 1980. He was reader of public international law at the Inns of Court School of law from 1973 to 1976. From 1980 to 1999, he was Chichele Professor of Public International Law and a Fellow of All Souls College at the University of Oxford; he was appointed a Distinguished Fellow of All Souls in 2004. He was director of studies at the International Law Association from 1982 to 1991. He was lecturer at The Hague Academy of International Law in 1979 and 1995.

From 1997 to 2008, he was a member of the United Nations' International Law Commission. and from 1974 to 1999, he was editor of The British Yearbook of International Law.

Personal life In 1957, Brownlie married Jocelyn Gale with whom he had one son and two daughters; the marriage was dissolved in 1975. He remarried in 1978, marrying Christine Apperley. Brownlie's wife Christine Brownlie brought an action suing for damage which occurred in England even though the accident occurred in Egypt; the case was decided in the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in . The court found in favour of Christine Brownlie in what was described as a landmark ruling.

Publications Several of Brownlie's published works are considered standard texts in their fields: International Law and the Use of Force between States (Oxford doctoral thesis, 1963) Principles of Public International Law (1966) (8th ed., 2012) Basic Documents in International Law (1967) (6th ed., 2008) Basic Documents on Human Rights (1971) (5th ed., 2006) African Boundaries: A Legal and Diplomatic Encyclopedia (1979) System of the Law of Nations: State Responsibility (1983)