2020-11-25 19:16:17
It is with great sadness that we have to announce the passing of Professor Philippe Kahn. Professor Kahn from the University of Burgundy, Dijon, France, was instrumental for my research on the New Lex Mercatoria. At a conference in Verona, Italy in November 1999, he made me aware of the "birth" of the New Lex Mercatoria in an article by Berthold Goldman on the legal nature of the Suez Canal Company in the French newspaper "Le Monde" of 4 October 1956. I had also been in touch with him through an exchange of letters many years ago. His report which I received with one of his letters entitled "Vers la Quȇte de La Lex Mercatoria: l'apport de L'École de Dijon 1957-1964" is reprinted in its original French version and in an English translation in the 2nd edition of my book "The Creeping Codification of the New Lex Mercatoria", 2010, 357 et seq (Kluwer). We have decided to name our online bibliography after Professor Philippe Kahn.
Please read below a short obituary from Dr. Sebastien Manciaux from the University of Burgundy, Dijon which was published on Young OGEMID today.
Klaus Peter Berger
„It is with great sadness that I have to inform you of the passing away of Dr Philippe Kahn.
Dr Philippe Kahn was fighting for two weeks after being infected by covid 19 and he died yesterday evening, surrounded with love by his family.
Dr Philippe Kahn was the student of Berthold Goldman who supervised his Phd thesis at the beginning of the 60' on the international sale of goods.
Dr Philippe Kahn, together with Berthold Goldman and Phillipe Fouchard (another of Berthold Goldman's distinguished students with a Phd thesis - written during the same period - on International Commercial Arbitration) founded the "School of Dijon of International Law", developing their works on Lex Mercatoria notably, and they founded the CREDIMI (Centre de Recherche sur le droit des investissements et des marchés international) after the first ever colloquium, at least in France, on ICSID in 1968, at a time this institution was hardly known.
In the 70's he welcomed in Dijon at the CREDIMI and for a couple of months the late Thomas Wälde who was himself at the beginning of his brilliant career.
Dr Philippe Kahn has been the first of CREDIMI's directors until 2000, a renowned researcher (he received the silver medal of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS, at the end of the 90's) and an intimidating teacher for graduated students (I still keep in my memory his seminar on the CISG).
Dr Philippe Kahn ran as its director the Journal de droit international (or Clunet, certainly the most known French journal on International Law) from 1985 to 2002.
Dr Philippe Kahn has been a pioneer on International Investment Law, with a first paper in this field on "Problèmes juridiques de l'investissement dans les pays de l'ancienne Afrique française" published in Clunet in 1965, and many more until he retired.
He acted as an expert or counsel in some of the first ICSID cases (notably as an expert for the Egyptian government in Spp. v. Egypt) and provided me with unknown elements on this case and on Kloeckner v. Cameroun, that have been very useful for the student I was at the beginning of my Phd thesis on ICSID (Philippe Kahn was my Phd supervisor and a very good one. I will be grateful to him for ever for his frank and good advice that helped me so much).
Finally, behind a gruff look and his long beard which gave him the appearance of a patriarch, he was deeply human and remained attentive until the end to the development of our professional careers, and we had the joy of having him with us to celebrate in December 2018 - during a two days colloquium - the 50th anniversary of CREDIMI.
My sincere condolences go to his family, to his wife and especially to his daughter Anne-Emmanuelle, a friend and a colleague, Law Professor (specialized in copyright law) in Lyon and a very good music player.“
