Obituary: H.E. Judge Vladlen S. Vereshchetin
adminSL9 August 2024
IISL is saddened to announce the passing of H.E. Judge Vladlen S. Vereshchetin on 7 August 2024. Judge Vereshchetin was a strong promoter of space law and a great supporter of IISL. He joined the Board of Directors in 1982 and served as Vice President for over ten years. The Institute awarded him the Honorary Directorship in 1994, recognizing his outstanding contribution to space law. Judge Vereshchetin was an enthusiastic supporter of IISL’s Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition and judged the World Finals for the first time in 1995 in Oslo and without interruption until he retired from the International Court of Justice, demonstrating his vivid interest in educating the young space lawyers. In 2009, he held the inaugural Nandasiri Jasentuliyana Keynote Lecture at the IISL Colloquium on the Law of Outer Space at the International Astronautical Congress in Daejeon, on the topic “The Law of Outer Space in the General Legal Field (Commonality and Particularities)”, published in the IISL Proceedings.
Judge Vereshchetin served as a Member of the International Court of Justice from 1995 to 2006. Before that, he was a member and Chairman of the International Law Commission, and a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. He was Professor of International Law (Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences), Doctor of Juridical Sciences, Maître émérite des Sciences of the Russian Federation (title bestowed by the President of the State). He served as Vice-Chairman and Legal Counsel, INTERCOSMOS, Russian Academy of Sciences; Deputy-Director and Head of the International Law Department of the Institute of State and Law (Moscow); Member of the USSR delegations to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and its Legal Subcommittee. He has published widely in the area of international law, in particular the law of outer space, international judicial settlement and the theory of international law.
IISL will miss him dearly as will the whole space community. We were privileged by his interest and engagement in space law and our Institute.
Officers and Presidents Emeriti of IISL
