In honor of professor Harold G. Maier.

• Author: Stewart, David P.
• Position: Testimonial

Among his many other significant accomplishments and career achievements, Professor Maier can count a singular experience which few in the field of international law are privileged to enjoy--that of spending a year as the Counselor on International Law at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C.

The Counselor occupies a senior position within the Office of the Legal Adviser. Organizationally, the incumbent reports to and works directly with the Legal Adviser and his Deputies in advising the Secretary of State and other senior officials on whatever fast-moving issues might occupy the foreign policy attention of the government at a given moment. Normally drawn from the ranks of the most gifted and respected up-and-coming academics in public international law, Counselors have in practice also served another important function--bringing fresh ideas and intellectual perspectives into the process of providing legal advice and counsel to the Department as a whole. In that regard, they have traditionally served as a valuable resource for the attorney advisers and Assistant Legal Advisers in the Office.

Equally important, at least in theory, is the benefit that the visiting academics themselves may derive from experiencing the legal dimension of the foreign policy process firsthand and seeing how public international law does (and on occasion does not) actually influence the analysis and choice of foreign policy options.

I had the privilege of meeting and working with Professor Maier during his tenure as Counselor from 1983-1984. My assignment at the time involved managing what we called the Iranian Claims program, the presentation and defense of claims before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague. Many will recall that the Tribunal was established in 1981 as part of the so called Algiers Accords which resolved the hostage crisis in Tehran. The Tribunal's jurisdiction encompassed inter alia claims by private U.S. nationals against the Iranian government arising out of events occurring during the revolution which toppled the Shah (they have now been resolved, along with claims by Iranian citizens against the U.S. government) as well as claims between the U.S. and Iranian governments (the process of adjudicating some of these claims still continues twenty-five years later). At the time, the Tribunal represented the largest international claims program ever undertaken (eclipsed, subsequently, by the U.N. Compensation Commission in...