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LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
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Lifetime Achievement Award: Arthur T. von Mehren
Awarded at the Society's 2004 Annual Meeting
Arthur von Mehren
richly deserves this award because his whole professional life is one
of extraordinary achievement in comparative law, and because he has
been one of the main pillars of the American Society of Comparative Law
for more than fifty years.
Regarding the former, Arthur’s record speaks for
itself. He is the author of 210 publications (10 books, 4 monographs,
119 articles, 48 book reviews, and 29 other writings) in six languages
(English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Japanese). They include
his path-breaking Civil Law System, his pioneering two books and nine articles on Japanese law, his highly original Law of Multistate Problems,
his foundational monographs on contract formation and form, his
“law-making” articles on jurisdiction, and his award-winning Hague
lectures. He has studied law in three countries, taught in nine
countries, lectured in many more, and has represented the United States
for 38 years at the Hague Conference of Private International Law. He
has served on the editorial committee of the International Encyclopedia of Comparative Law,
and as editor and author for volume VII. He has also served as
Rapporteur for the Hague Conference, the Institut de droit
international, and the Puerto Rican Academy of Legislation and
Jurisprudence, and as Advisor to the Reporter of the Second Contracts Restatement, and has drafted two international conventions and one codification.
Arthur’s exemplary work has brought him numerous
awards and honors, including the Order of the Rising Sun from the
Japanese Government, the Canada Prize from the International
Academy of Comparative Law, and the Leonard J. Theberge Award from the
International Law Section of the American Bar Association. He has been
honored with a 900-page Festschrift with contributions from 54 authors
from five continents. He holds honorary doctorates from the
universities of Leuven and Paris II, Panthéon-Assas, and is an
honorary fellow of Downing College, Cambridge. He is a member of the
Institute de droit international, the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, and the International Academy of Comparative Law.
Regarding service to and through the Society,
Arthur’s record is equally telling and well known. He was a member of
the first editorial board of the American Journal of Comparative Law in 1952, and continued to serve as editor for another 34 years. He contributed four writings to the Journal’s
first volume, and 20 additional writings to subsequent volumes. He
served as the Society’s Vice President from the 1970s to 1994, as
President from 1994 to 1998, and as Honorary President from 1998 to
2000.
Symeon C. Symeonides presented this Award at the Society's annual dinner in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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