Hsu Mo

Hsu Mo (Chinese徐 谟, Pinyin Xu Mó, W.-G. Hsu Mo, born October 22, 1893 in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, † June 28, 1956 in The Hague) was a Chinese lawyer, politician and diplomat. He worked from 1931 to 1941 as deputy foreign minister of his native country, as Ambassador to Australia and Turkey, and from 1946 until his death as a judge at the International Court of Justice.

Life

Hsu Mo was born in 1893 in Suzhou and studied law at the Peiyang University and at George Washington University. He gained his PhD at the University of Melbourne in Australia. In the 1920s he worked first as a professor of international law and international relations at the Nankai University and later as a judge at various district courts. In 1928, he joined the Chinese Foreign Ministry, where he worked as a consultant and later as director of the European-American and Asian Department. Three years later he was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. After ten years in this position he joined in 1941 as Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador to Australia from 1944 to 1946 he was ambassador of his homeland in Turkey.

After the end of World War II he was in 1945 in Washington, DC involved in the work of the United Nations committee, which formulated the Statute of the International Court of Justice ( ICJ). In addition, he was the rapporteur of the Committee on Chapter VI of the UN Charter on the regulations for the peaceful settlement of disputes. A year later he was elected judge at ICJ, where he worked until his death. He was succeeded by his compatriot Wellington Koo.

Hsu Mo was internationally since 1948 Member of the Institut de Droit. He died in 1956 in The Hague.