José María Ruda

José María Ruda ( born August 9, 1924 in Buenos Aires; † 7 July 1994 s'Agaró, Spain) was an Argentine lawyer and diplomat. From 1973 to 1991 he worked as a judge at the International Court in The Hague, including from 1988 to 1991 as president of the court.

Life

José María Ruda graduated in law in 1949 at the Universidad de Buenos Aires from where he was from 1960 to 1973 professor of international law, and attained beyond 1955 an LL.M. degree from New York University. From 1950 to 1955 he worked in the department for the codification of international law, the Office of Legal Affairs of the United Nations (UN). He then began a career in the diplomatic service of his native country and in 1961 legal advisor to the Argentine Foreign Ministry.

In the following years, he represented Argentina regularly at meetings of the UN General Assembly and was appointed permanent representative of the country at the United Nations in 1965. This office he held for five years, in which Argentina for two years as a non-permanent member belonged to the UN Security Council. From 1954 to 1972 he was a member of the International Law Commission, and in 1968 as its chairman. In 1970 he returned to his home country and was Under Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Three years later he became Justice (ICJ ) is selected in February 1973 as a judge at the International Court of Justice in The Hague and was at an age of 49 years one of the youngest ever elected judges in the history of the ICJ. He belonged to the court until 1991 and worked in the last three years in office from 1988 until 1991 as its president and then in one case as an ad hoc judge.

José María Ruda was considered independent in his views and his positions included in the court decisions. During his time as President of the International Court of Justice succeeded relatively frequently to achieve a unanimous decision of the court. Immediately following his work on the ICJ to 1993 he was President of the Iran - United States Claims Tribunal. In the following years he worked both in the international as well as in the economic field as a consultant and mediator in international disputes. He died in 1994 of a heart attack during a vacation on the Costa Brava.

Works (selection)

• Instrumentos internazionale. Tipografica Editora Argentina, Buenos Aires 1976
• Presente y futuro del Tribunal Internacional de Justicia. Universidad de Granada, Granada 1990
• Derecho internacional publico. Tipografica Editora Argentina, Buenos Aires 1994