Mr. Shinya Murase, an outstanding professor from Sophia University in Tokyo, enjoys a high
reputation in the academic circle of international law. Having obtained S.J.D.
from the University of Tokyo in 1972, Prof. Murase also was visiting
scholar/research fellow at Harvard Law School in 1974-76 and visiting professor
at Columbia Law School in 1995.
His authority in the area of international law made me worry
that Prof. Murase would be too serious to chat with. However, this first
impression turns out to be absolutely wrong when we first met Prof. Murase in
the airport. During the entire week, he was so gentle and always expressed his
appreciation to our volunteering works. What’s more, every time we did a favor
for Prof. Murase such as sending materials to the students or collecting the
questions from the fellows, he always said thank you to us with a sincere
smile.
Furthermore, Prof. Murase speakes highly of Chinese law school
students and always encourages us to read more and write more. Prof. Murase
told us when he was a Judge in the Philip C. Jessup Moot Competition, he
was really surprised about Chinese students’ fabulous performance, not only in
language but also the deep understanding of the legal issues as well as the
logical framework they presented.
The topic Prof. Murase focused in the Summer School is about the
international law of the atmosphere. He organized this topic in a logical
method and showed the students the related cases in ICJ and ITLOS. Prof. Murase
encouraged all the students to pay more attention on this issue and predicted
that the codification of the atmosphere law would be a landmark in this
century.
It is so unfortunate that Prof. Murase was not in good health
this week in Xiamen. He coughed so severely that he even couldn’t speak
continuously in the last lesson. However, he still managed the class well with
the help of his assistant. I sincerely wish Prof. Murase a speedy recovery and
I will cherish this week very much.
Report by Huanchun Huang, Tingfeng Jin