Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak following the passing of an outstanding South Australian, James Richard Crawford AC, Judge of the International Court of Justice. Judge Crawford died on 31 May 2021 at the age of 72. With his passing our nation has lost one of its most influential scholars and jurists on the international stage. I note that there was a flood of tributes to the man and his work when news of his passing became public.

At the outset, I tender my profound sympathies to his family and many friends throughout the Australian and international community as well as the many people who have been influenced by his scholarship and jurisprudence. I have the pleasure of knowing one of his daughters, Rebecca Huntley, whose incisive mind gives some hint of her kin.

James Crawford was educated locally at Brighton High School, as it was then known, and at the University of Adelaide. After completing his doctorate in international law at Oxford, Judge Crawford returned to Adelaide to launch an academic career as a lecturer in international and constitutional law. This, in turn, took him to distinguished appointments at Sydney University and then Cambridge. Judge Crawford loved the intellectual rigour of academic life, but he was not satisfied with it. He knew that theory was nothing without application, and he was determined that his career would be uncloistered.

He wrote landmark texts, most notably The Creation of States in International Law, setting out the most elemental and profound concepts underpinning international jurisprudence, such as: 'What is a state?' and 'What does it mean to have sovereignty?' He took that work a giant leap further when he was commissioned to the UN International Law Commission to write the articles on the responsibilities of states for internationally wrongful acts, a project which had eluded his predecessors for some five decades. He completed it in five years. These articles provide the framework for state accountability and consequences for breaches in international law. It's little wonder that, in its obituary, the Cambridge Faculty of Law said he was 'a towering figure in international law' whose 'work is unparalleled'.

As an advocate, James Crawford served as senior counsel, counsel or co-counsel in some 30 contentious and advisory proceedings before the court. These internationally significant cases included representing Australia against Portugal in the East Timor case; the legality of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence; and the legal consequences of the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. My colleague the honourable Mark Dreyfus QC MP recalled that, as Attorney-General, he had the great fortune to work with Justice Crawford preparing for and arguing Australia's successful case against Japan's unlawful whaling program before the International Court of Justice in July 2013. Mr Dreyfus described Judge Crawford as one of Australia's finest ever legal minds.

In 2015, James Crawford commenced tenure as one of the International Court of Justice's 15 judges. He was only the second Australian to have ever been elected to the court, and the first for nearly 50 years. He approached this work following the dictum that had served him throughout his career. He was committed to international law as an open system—a practical tool for the resolution of apparently intractable international problems.

Crawford's work broke new ground at home and abroad, and he is most famous for his work in international law, but he was also the commissioner in charge of a 1986 report by the Australian Law Reform Commission titled The recognition of Aboriginal customary laws. That report is now considered one of the foundations of the Mabo decision that recognised native title. I was moved to read Judge Crawford's words, 'From a personal point of view, it is the biggest piece of work I've ever done.' It reminds us that there is no greater contribution to make to this country than to our national reconciliation, and it underscores how both on our shores and abroad James Crawford dedicated his life's work to helping shape an open and fair system of laws to serve our common humanity.

I end by expressing again my deepest sympathy to Rebecca and to all of Judge Crawford's family and friends.