Krystyna Marek

Summary

Krystyna Marek (11 October 1914–30 March 1993) was a Swiss-Polish professor of international law. Edward Raczynski, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Polish government in exile, called her "one of the first Polish female diplomats."[1]

Krystyna Marek
Born(1914-10-11)October 11, 1914
DiedMarch 30, 1993(1993-03-30) (aged 78)
OccupationAcademic
ParentZygmunt Marek
Academic background
Alma mater
ThesisIdentity and Continuity of States in Public International Law
Doctoral advisorPaul Guggenheim
Academic work
DisciplineInternational public law

Biography edit

Krystyna Marek was born into a family of lawyers. Her father, Zygmunt Marek, was a member of Sejm and leader of the Polish Socialist Party. Following her father's death in 1931, she moved to Switzerland, where she completed high school. She returned to Poland and in 1937 graduated in law from the Jagiellonian University.[2]

With the outbreak of war, she fled Poland with her family, eventually arriving in London in 1941 where she took up work for the Polish government in exile.

Following the Second World War she worked for Radio Free Europe in Munich and contributed to Kultura, the Paris-based Polish emigre literary journal.[3]

Marek returned to Switzerland and completed a doctoral thesis in the field of international law in 1954 at the University of Geneva's Graduate Institute of International Studies. The resulting book, Identity and Continuity of States in Public International Law, was the first full length monograph on the topic[2] and considered "brilliant."[4] She worked at the University of Geneva and in 1967 was appointed full professor at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, where she also held the position of Director of the Department of Public International Law.

In the 1980s she was active in organising international support for Solidarity.

She died in 1993 and was buried at the Rakowicki Cemetery in Kraków.

References edit

  1. ^ Termiski, Bogumił (2013). "Krystyna Marek (1914-1993): Polish Lawyer and Patriot". Revista europea de derecho de la navegación marítima y aeronáutica. 30: 41–44. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.686.1378. ISSN 1130-2127.
  2. ^ a b Wheatley, Natasha (2021-01-07). "What Can We (She) Know about Sovereignty?: Krystyna Marek and the Worldedness of International Law". Women's International Thought: A New History: 327–344. doi:10.1017/9781108859684.020. ISBN 9781108859684. S2CID 234271345.
  3. ^ "Emigracja. Klimat czasu - klimat ludzi. Jerzy Stempowski - Krystyna Marek". Culture.pl (in Polish). 2007.
  4. ^ Kunz, Josef L. (1956). "Identity and Continuity of States in Public International Law. By Krystyna Marek. Geneva: Librairie E. Droz, 1954. pp. vi. 616". American Journal of International Law. 50 (1): 165–166. doi:10.2307/2194610. ISSN 0002-9300. JSTOR 2194610.