A National Lawyer Takes Stock : Professor Ross' Textbook and Other Forays into International Law

In Denmark, Professor Alf Ross was the legal icon of the twentieth century. His sharp and daring intellect made his eloquent writings stimulating reading and attracted many readers abroad. His astute and uncompromising style of analysis, carrying principles and assumptions to their ultimate conclusion, made Ross' writings in the field of international law a fine study of the general conditions of international lawyers as well as of the basis of international law. This was the case, even though Ross was not primarily an international lawyer; indeed, it might have been precisely for this reason that Ross was so thoughtprovoking. Ross' key interest was to study the concept of law when removed from the context of national law. But far more than a 'realist' theory of law, his writings provide witness to the possible impact of national legal thinking on international law. Ross' 'Textbook of International Law', in which he took stock of international law, offers a good illustration of a more complicated relationship between national and international law, and between national and international lawyers - then as well as today