STONE, JULIUS

STONE, JULIUS (1907–1985), jurist and international lawyer. Born in Leeds, England, Stone studied in England and at Harvard, where he was assistant professor of law 1933–36. From 1938 to 1942 he was dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of New Zealand and in 1942 was appointed professor of international law and jurisprudence at the University of Sydney. His appointment to the Sydney chair was marked by controversy. Stone was attacked as a judicial radical by conservatives; these attacks often had antisemitic overtones. Stone was awarded the o.b.e. in the New Year's Honors of 1973. Stone's many books include International Guarantees of Minority Rights (1932), International Court and World Crisis (1962), The Province and Function of Law (1961⁴), Legal Controls of International Conflict (1954), and Aggression and World Order (1958). His greatest contribution to the study of law is his trilogy, Human Law and Human Justice (1965), Legal Systems and Lawyers Reasoning (1966); and Social Dimensions of Law and Justice (1967), regarded as a milestone in the history of jurisprudence, which attempts to assess law in terms of logic, justice, and society, corresponding to analytical, ethical, and sociological jurisprudence.

An active figure in Jewish affairs in Australia, Stone published in 1944 a booklet, Stand Up and be Counted, in which he challenged the anti-Zionist views of Sir Isaac *Isaacs and called upon Australian Jewry to rally behind the Zionist cause. From 1968 to 1970 he was academic director and head of the Truman Center for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He remained a staunch supporter of Israel in the Australian public sphere until his death. A Festschrift, Legal Change: Essays in Honour of Julius Stone, edited by A.R. Blackshield, appeared in 1983. Leonie Star's Julius Stone: An Intellectual Life (1992) is a comprehensive biography.

[Isidor Solomon]