John Erskine Read

John Erskine Read ( born July 5, 1888 in Halifax, † December 23, 1973 in Toronto ) was a Canadian lawyer. He was from 1920 to 1929 worked as a professor at Dalhousie University and from 1946 to 1958 as a judge of the International Court of Justice.

Life

John Read was born in 1888 in Halifax and studied until 1909 Law at Dalhousie University and then briefly at Columbia University, and from 1910 to 1913 with a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford. In the following years he worked until 1920 as a lawyer. After that, he worked at Dalhousie University from 1920 to 1929 as a professor and from 1924 to 1929 as Dean of the Law Faculty.

From 1929 to 1946 he was then legal adviser and from 1944 Deputy Under Secretary in the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After the end of World War II, he was elected in 1946 as a judge of the newly established International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he worked until 1958. It is therefore in the history of the Court of previously only judge from Canada.

John Read was married in 1915 and father of three sons. He died in Toronto in 1973.

Awards

John Read was awarded an honorary doctorate from Dalhousie University, the University of Alberta and McMaster University, and was incorporated in 1967 as Officer in the Order of Canada. Named after him is the John E. Read Medal, awarded by the Canadian Council on International Law.

Works (selection)

• The Origins and Nature of the Law. Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1955