Foreword to the second edition

• Author: Robert J Currie, Dr Joseph Rikhof
• Pages: 25-27

xxv

FOREWORD

to the Second Edition

This is my f‌iftieth year in law teaching. That means I am of an age

where (mostly f‌ine) younger scholars f‌latter me by asking me to wr ite a

foreword, or even an afterword, to their books. It is not a genre of writ-

ing that I feel comfortable with and I quickly learned how to say no.

The invitation to write a foreword to this book was, however, one that

I could not resist. The f‌irst edition of this book, which appeared only

a few short years ago, was a f‌ine pioneering piece of scholarship in an

area close to my heart: an area in which I have been teaching and writ-

ing for much of my professional life. A new edition promised to take it

to new levels. I have not been disappointed.

Robert Currie of the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie Univer-

sity, a leading scholar in the f‌ield, has been joined in the new edition

by Joseph Rikhof, senior counsel, manager of the law with the Crimes

against Humanity and War Crimes Section of the Department of Jus-

tice, Canada. Profess or Currie has added signif‌icant new materi al of his

own to the material in the earlier edition. So has Dr Rikhof, who has

also contributed an additional and very useful chapter, entitled “Ex-

tended Liability, Defences, and Child Soldiers.” Gillian MacNeil (LLB

Dalhousie, 2006; LLL University of Ottawa, 2007; LLM Cambridge,

2008), who wrote the original chapter on immunities in the f‌irst edi-

tion, has brought that contribution up to date with some fascinating

new material, and otherwise assisted in the new edition.

I confess neither in law school in New Zealand in the early 1960s,

nor as a graduate student at Columbia Law School in New York in the