Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, renowned scholar, international lawyer and Bencher of Gray’s Inn bequeathed his international law library to Gray’s Inn. In April 2018, some 100 metres of books, in 185 boxes, were delivered to the Inn and stored in the Library where they have been gradually unpacked, sorted, inventoried, counted and measured. This project has been carried out by Abigail Cass, Assistant Librarian, at Gray’s Inn.
The Collection contains journals, law reports, pamphlets, off-prints, government publications and conference proceedings. Many items are out of print or hard to find. Areas include defining international issues of the last 60 years or so: the post-war settlement with Germany; the Middle East conflict; nuclear weapons; outer space law; the Vietnam war; and the EEC, as it was then – all of these are represented in the Collection and much else besides. Undoubtedly, the Collection would offer fertile ground for anyone wishing to study the development of international law since 1945 or, alternatively, anyone wishing to write a biography of Sir Eli.
Under the Inns Libraries specialisation scheme, Gray’s Inn is responsible for maintaining a specialist international law collection for members of the English Bar. It is therefore especially fitting that Sir Eli’s bequest provides a major supplement to what is the flagship collection at Gray’s Inn Library.
The Collection contains nearly 500 monographs and can be searched via the Library Catalogue.
Further details can be found at The Lauterpacht Collection.
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