Alfred Verdross

This is a good article. Click here for more information.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Alfred Verdross
ius cogens

Alfred Verdross or Verdroß or Verdroß-Droßberg (until 1919, Edler von Droßberg; 22 February 1890 – 24 April 1980) was an Austrian international lawyer and judge at the European Court of Human Rights.

After having served as an Austrian foreign ministry official, he became professor of public international law, private international law and philosophy of law at the University of Vienna. He was a pan-German nationalist and an early sympathizer with Nazism, but did not join the Nazi party. Following the German occupation of Austria, he was suspended from his teaching assignments, but from mid-1939 onwards he was allowed to resume the teaching of international law. After the end of World War II he continued his academic career in Vienna and became, among other things, member of the International Law Commission, member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, president of the Institut de Droit International and, from 1959 to 1977, judge at the European Court of Human Rights.

Together with Hans Kelsen, Adolf Merkl [de; pt] and Josef L. Kunz, he was one the main exponents of the Vienna school of legal theory. He was an early proponent and chief theorist of the ius cogens doctrine and of the monist theory of the relationship between international and national law, and is considered one of the most influential international lawyers of the 20th century.

Life

Early years

Alfred Verdross's father, General Ignaz Verdroß-Droßberg, Commander of the Kaiserjäger Division, after 1915

Alfred Verdross was born on 22 February 1890 in

World War I.[3][4][5]

In 1916, Verdross passed the judges' examination and subsequently entered military service as first lieutenant auditor (Oberleutnantauditor) at the Supreme Military Court (Oberster Militärgerichtshof) in Vienna.[4][6] Before the end of the war, on 15 January 1918 Verdross left the military service and was assigned to the legal services of the Imperial and Royal Foreign Ministry.[7] After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy he became secretary to the Austrian Legation in Berlin. In this capacity, he was among the experts who in December 1918 contributed to the parliamentary debates leading up to the drafting of the Weimar Constitution,[8] and in 1919 an essay of his succeeded in persuading the parliamentary Constitutional commission to redraft the constitutional provision on international law.[9] In December 1920 he returned to Vienna, where he was employed in the International Law Department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs until 1924, and from 1923 also as a professor at the Consular Academy.[1][10] He habilitated at the University of Vienna in 1921. In 1924 was appointed associate professor (außerordentlicher Professor) of philosophy of law and in 1925 full professor of public international law, private international law and philosophy of law at the University of Vienna, where he served as a member of the Law Faculty until his retirement in 1961.[1][11]

After 1924 Verdross became director and coeditor of the

Hague Academy of International Law.[6][14] In 1926–1929, he was appointed substitute member of the Austrian Constitutional Court, in 1928, and in 1931–1933 Dean of the Vienna Faculty of Law.[10][11]

Austria moved decisively toward an autocratic fascist state when Chancellor Dollfuss began ruling by decree after the self- elimination of parliament in 1933. Verdross was offered a position as Minister of Justice, but refused, although he was personally not hostile to the values of Austrofascism. Together with the law school deans of Graz and Innsbruck, he even lodged a formal protest against the breach of the constitution by the new authoritarian government.[15][16][17][18] He agreed to join Dolfuss's Austrian nationalist party, the Fatherland Front, only on the condition that he would not renounce "the ultimate goal of the unification of all Germans", i.e., his pan-Germanist ideals.[18]

In 1935 he was appointed as an extraordinary member of the

The New Commonwealth, which advocated for the establishment of a world court to adjudicate international disputes and an international police force to enforce its decisions.[19]

Relationship with Nazism

Verdross was a Catholic conservative whose political views during the

The exact extent of Verdross's sympathy for Nazism remains debated, and his relationship with the fascist government is a matter of controversy.[23][24] He was an early sympathiser with Nazism and was active in DNSAP circles even after the party was outlawed in 1933.[1] He was popular among German nationalist and Nazi students and often intervened on their behalf,[1][25] but on one occasion he also protected Jewish and democratic students from a Nazi attack at the university.[16] In 1933–1934 his assistant at the Consular Academy was Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte, at the time an SA member, whom he had recommended to Kelsen in Cologne.[26] In 1934, his personal friendship with Kelsen came to an end when Kelsen was forced by the editorial board of the Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht to resign as editor on the grounds that he was Jewish.[a][28]

In his successful 1937 textbook on international law, Verdross attempted to bring Nazism and Catholic-inspired universalism closer together.[29] The book calls Mussolini a defender of Christian values, characterises the Nazist doctrine of international law as "anti-imperalist and federalist",[b] and contains significant traces of a völkisch approach to legal studies and international politics.[c][32][24][22][33]

Verdross showed no qualms about contact with Nazism, but never joined the

Prize Court of Appeals (Oberprisenhof)[11][37] and director of the Institute of Legal Sciences at the university of Vienna.[39]

Post-war

Alfred Verdross during a doctoral graduation at the University of Vienna in 1952

After the end of World War II, Verdross continued his career without undergoing the denazification process.[1] He regained his academic position in 1945. He served as the Dean of the Faculty of Law in 1946–1947 and again in 1958–1959, was nominated as a full professor in 1947, and was the Rector of the University of Vienna from 1951–1952. In 1950, he was elected a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and of the Institut de Droit International[11] (from 1977, honorary member[1]). In 1956, he was appointed by the United Nations General Assembly as the first Austrian member of the International Law Commission – a body of experts mainly concerned with the codification of international law – where he served from 1957 to 1966.[39][40] From 1958 to 1977 he also served as a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration of The Hague and from 1959 to 1961 as president of the Institut de droit international.[40] In 1957, he declined a nomination as a joint candidate for the Federal Presidency of the Austrian People's Party and the Austrian Freedom Party against the later victorious Adolf Schärf.[39]

In 1959, Verdross became a judge of the newly created European Court of Human Rights, where he sat for two terms until 1977.[41][39][42] In 1961, he was President of the Vienna Conference on Diplomatic Relations.[43] Until 1977, he was also a member of the Curatorium of the Hague Academy of International Law, where he taught at least five courses.[43] His textbook Völkerrecht ("International law"), which first appeared in 1937, soon became the leading treatise on international law in the German language, translated into both Spanish and Russian.[40][43][44] Verdross came to be regarded as one of the most authoritative international lawyers of the 20th century,[40][45][46][47] not least because of the resurgence of natural law theory in post-war Austria and Germany: Verdross became one of the most celebrated protagonists in this revival.[48]

Verdross died on 27 April 1980 in Innsbruck, the city where he was born.[49]

Doctrine

Alongside Adolf Merkl [de; pt] and Josef Laurenz Kunz, Verdross was one of Hans Kelsen's most important pupils and a leading exponent of the Vienna school of legal theory.[7][50][51] Many of his contributions to the study of international law are based on Kelsen's theory of law and the state, which Verdross largely embraced, including the idea of the unity of law, the hierarchical structure of the legal system (so-called Stufenbau [de]) and the concept of basic norm (Grundnorm).[52][53][54][55]

Thus, as early as 1921, Verdross followed Kelsen's lead and abandoned his initial "monism with primacy of state law", according to which international and national law constitute a single legal system in which national law enjoys supremacy. He also rejected the prevailing theory of the time, Triepel's "dualism", according to which international and national law constitute two separate legal systems, based on different grounds of validity and addressed to different subjects. Instead, in line with the revival of the universalist approach to international law initiated by the Dutch scholar Hugo Krabbe and continued by Kelsen,[56][57] Verdross subscribed to "monism with primacy of international law", a position he already expounded in his 1923 book Die Einheit des rechtlichen Weltbildes ("The Unity of the Legal World-View").[10][55][58][59] From that universalist perspective, international and national law are parts of a single, unitary legal system, largely effective and endowed with the power of coercion; within that common frame, international law prevails over national law and determines the scope of legitimate state action. Anticipating Kelsen, who later accepted Verdross's views in his Pure Theory of Law, Verdross admitted that in case of conflict between international law and national law the latter is not per se null and void, but remains valid until it is formally repealed or amended to make it compatible with international law: national law retains a temporary, provisional, validity (so-called "moderate monism").[53][60][61]

These conclusions were largely based on the rejection, shared by Verdross and Kelsen, of the dogma of absolute state sovereignty and voluntarist legal positivism: sovereignty is no longer the "supreme power" but only a competence conferred on the state directly by international law;[62] international law is not founded on the consent of states and therefore states can in principle be bound by rules to which they have not agreed. In Verdross' work, the "fight against voluntarist legal positivism" was the premise for further doctrinal developments, including the possibility of recognising as sources of international law, alongside the law of treaties and customary law, also the "general principles of law recognized by civilised nations".[40][63][64] In a 1931 essay, Verdross explained that these fundamental principles originate from the legal consciousness of all modern civilised nations and are binding also upon states which have not consented to them. In a 1937 essay on "Forbidden Treaties" he argued that these principles forbid the conclusion of treaties contra bonos mores, that is, offensive to the conscience and sense of justice. In so doing, he became the chief theorist of the ius cogens doctrine that prevails today and that found its final breakthrough in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: he contended that all rules of general international law created for humanitarian purposes qualify as ius cogens, and that neither international treaties nor customary international law can override these fundamental principles upon which the international legal order is built.[65][66][67][68] Verdross's work also had a strong influence on later theorization about the "constitutionalisation of international law".[69]

Verdross also distanced himself from essential parts of Kelsen's theory.[70] As early as 1923, he rejected Kelsen's moral relativism, turned away from of his mentor's neo-Kantianism and legal positivism, and fully embraced objective idealism, the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of natural law, and the Wertphilosophie of Franz Brentano, Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann.[d][7][71][72] The School of Salamanca in particular is said to be "so influential on Verdross that he virtually adopted it as the Leitmotiv of his entire international legal thinking".[73]

Consequently, Verdross radically modified the Kelsenian theory of the basic norm. For Kelsen, the basic norm is simply "presupposed" by legal science, rather than created by some human or divine authority,[74] and is "formal" because it can found the validity of any legal system, irrespective of the content of its norms.[75] In contrast, Verdross's basic norm is neither presupposed nor formal: it is rooted in the objective realm of values and is both legal and moral.[15][53][76] He believes that the social nature of human communities gives rise to objective values, and can therefore ascribe to the basic norm a substantive normative content, that of the fundamental principles of law, such as the safeguarding of human freedom, dignity and basic standards of inviolability.[77][78] According to Martti Koskenniemi, in filling the basic norm with natural law principles, "Verdross used the pure theory so as to turn what Kelsen saw as political choice into an article of faith in fundamental values. This was the language of Austrian Catholicism that did little to prevent the country’s descent into Nazism".[69]

From the mid-1930s onwards, the gulf between Kelsen and his former pupil Verdross widened, as the latter took up some of the ethno-nationalist themes then in vogue and began to argue that the Volkstum constitutes "the highest natural form of humanity" and that "every person can attain the development of his natural talents only within the Volksgemeinschaft", thus moving away from Kelsen's and his school's rejection of nationalism.[79][80]

Legacy

Verdross is regarded as the founder and leading exponent of the Viennese School of international law and legal philosophy based on natural law theory.[45] According to his disciple Bruno Simma, "[w]ithin the German-speaking countries, Alfred Verdross shaped international legal thinking in a way unparalleled in the past";[45] in the Austrian community of international law scholars, "everybody was exposed to and, to a greater or lesser degree, influenced by the teachings of the Viennese master".[81]

Verdross's disciples include

Paris Lodron University of Salzburg;[82] and Bruno Simma (born in 1941), who met Verdross in 1967, when he was already emeritus, and became professor at the University of Michigan Law School and at the University of Munich, and served as a judge on the International Court of Justice.[83][84]

Alongside his academic capacity, Verdross contributed to the development of international law as a judge at the European Court of Human Rights in the early stages of this new system of international rights protection, and as a member of the International Law Commission. Thanks to his long membership of the International Law Commission, he was in a position to contribute his ideas to the international codification process.[45]

Awards

Memorial plaque for Alfred Verdross, University of Vienna, Alser Straße 4

Publications (selected)

Books

  • Die Einheit des rechtlichen Weltbildes auf Grundlage der Völkerrechtsverfassung (Tübingen, Mohr 1923)
  • Die Verfassung der Völkerrechtsgemeischaft (Wien, Springer 1926)
  • Völkerrecht (Berlin, Springer, 1937 read online; 5th ed. 1964, with Stephan Verosta and Karl Zemanek)
  • Die immerwährende Neutralität der Republik Österreich (Wien, Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1958; 3rd ed. 1967)
  • Abendländische Rechtsphilosophie. Ihre Grundlagen und Hauptprobleme in geschichtlicher Schau (Wien, Springer, 1958; 2nd ed. 1963)
  • Die Quellen des Universellen Völkerrechts. Eine Einführung (Freiburg, Rombach, 1973)
  • (with Bruno Simma) Universelles Völkerrechts. Theorie und Praxis (Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 1976; 3rd ed. 1984)
  • Österreichs immerwährende Neutralität (Wien, Verlag f. Politik u. Geschichte, 1978; also in English and French).
  • Alfred Verdross: Gesammelte Schriften, edited by Franz Köck and Herbert Schambeck (Wien, Verlag Österreich, 2019)

Courses

Essays

  • "Das Problem des freien Ermessens und die Freirechtsbewegung", Österreichische Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht, 1. Jahrgang, Wien 1914, pp. 616–644. read online
  • "L'excès de pouvoir du juge arbitral dans le droit international public", Revue de droit international et de législation comparée, 1928, pp. 225–242. read online
  • "Les principes généraux du droit et le droit des gens", Revue de droit international, 1934, pp. 484. read online
  • "L'idée du droit des gens dans la philosophie de Platon à Hegel", Mélanges offerts à Ernest Mahaim, vol. II, 1935, p. 383.
  • "Forbidden Treaties in International Law", American Journal of International Law, 1937, pp. 571–577. read online
  • "General International Law and The United Nations Charter", International Affairs, 1954, pp. 342–348. read online
  • "Jus Dispositivum and Jus Cogens in International Law", American Journal of International Law, 1966, pp. 55–63. read online
  • "Le principe de la non intervention dans les affaires relevant de la compétence nationale d'un Etat et l'article 2 (7) de la Charte des Nations Unies", in La Communauté internationale. Mélanges offerts à Charles Rousseau, Paris, Pedone, 1974, pp. 267–276. read online
  • "La dignité de la personne humaine comme base des droits de l’homme", Österreichische Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, 1980, vol. 31, pp. 271–277.

Festschriften

  • F. A. von der Heydte et al. (eds.), Völkerrecht und rechtliches Weltbild. Festschrift für Alfred Verdross (Vienna: Springer, 1960).
  • R. Marcic et al. (eds.), Internationale Festschrift für Alfred Verdross zum 80. Geburtstag (München-Salzburg: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1971)
  • H. Miehsler et al. (eds.), Ius Humanitatis. Festschrift zum 90. Geburtstag von Alfred Verdross (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1980) .

See also

Notes and references

Notes

  1. ^ The personal friendship with Kelsen was restored in 1945 through Josef Laurenz Kunz's mediation.[27] In 1948 Kelsen wrote in a letter to Verdross: "It is true that I was somewhat disgruntled. I was upset that I was forced to resign as the main editor of the Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht even before the Anschluss. I was also of the opinion that you had gone too far with certain political value judgements in your Völkerrecht – by far the best presentation of the subject in the German language. But I have never blamed you in the least for staying in the homeland and have always fully understood that this was not possible without making certain concessions."[27]
  2. ^ "As the guardian of the Roman tradition, [the Italian foreign policy] defends Christian occidental values and the order that sustains them ... since it recognises the individual development of all peoples and rejects the amalgamation of foreign nations, the National Socialist doctrine of international law is anti-imperalist and federalist and therefore fundamentally different from the nationalism of the pre-war period."[30]
  3. ^ "But if Volkstum [ethnic nationhood] constitutes the highest natural form of humanity, every person can attain the development of his natural talents only within the Volksgemeinschaft [national community]. With this, the Volkstum becomes the natural foundation of all culture. The political unity of the state, too, must do justice to this fact, since the state, by its very conception, forms the perfect community of life (civitas perfecta) for its members, but can fulfill this task only if it makes it possible for them to bring their natural talents and abilities to fruition. However, as a result of the natural [artmäßige] diversity of humanity, such a formation is possible only in the Volksgemeinschaft. The most perfect realization of this idea is possible in pure nation states."[31]
  4. ^ In his Die Rechtstheorie Hans Kelsen's (1930), Verdross recommended that Kelsen should relinquish "the neo-Kantian prejudice that the method creates the object of enquiry".[17]

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Kniefacz & Mühlberger 2014.
  2. ^ Simma 1975, pp. 134–5.
  3. ^ a b Staudigl-Ciechowicz & Olechowski 2014, p. 533.
  4. ^ a b Simma 2018, p. 417.
  5. ^ Fillafer & Feichtinger 2019, p. 427.
  6. ^ a b c d Notice biographique 1935, p. 193.
  7. ^ a b c Staudigl-Ciechowicz & Olechowski 2014, p. 534.
  8. ^ Stolleis 2004, p. 56.
  9. ^ Simma 1995b, pp. 41–42.
  10. ^ a b c Staudigl-Ciechowicz & Olechowski 2014, p. 535.
  11. ^ a b c d e Simma 1995a, p. 103.
  12. ^ "ZOER Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht". elibrary.verlagoesterreich.at. Archived from the original on 18 May 2023. Retrieved 18 May 2023.
  13. ^ Busch 2012, p. 155–156.
  14. ^ Bernstorff 2010, p. 282.
  15. ^ a b c Staudigl-Ciechowicz & Olechowski 2014, p. 536.
  16. ^ a b c Seidl-Hohenveldern 1995, p. 99.
  17. ^ a b Fillafer & Feichtinger 2019, p. 429.
  18. ^ a b Busch 2012, p. 152.
  19. ^ Busch 2012, p. 153.
  20. ^ Busch 2012, p. 144.
  21. ^ Carty 1995.
  22. ^ a b Simma 1995b, p. 36.
  23. ^ Busch 2012, p. 139.
  24. ^ a b Staudigl-Ciechowicz & Olechowski 2014, p. 537.
  25. ^ Carty 1995, p. 80.
  26. ^ Busch 2012, pp. 141–142.
  27. ^ a b Busch 2012, p. 161.
  28. ^ Busch 2012, p. 155–156, 163.
  29. ^ Amorosa 2022, p. 418.
  30. ^ Verdross 1937, pp. 28–29.
  31. ^ Verdross 1937, p. 40, as translated by Bernstorff 2010, p. 59–60.
  32. ^ Bernstorff 2010, pp. 59, 283.
  33. ^ Carty 1995, p. 80–81.
  34. ^ Carty 1995, p. 78.
  35. ^ Stolleis 2004, p. 305.
  36. ^ Busch 2012, pp. 159, 163.
  37. ^ a b Seidl-Hohenveldern 1995, p. 100.
  38. ^ Bernstorff 2010, p. 283.
  39. ^ a b c d Busch 2012, p. 162.
  40. ^ a b c d e f Lingens 2001, p. 649.
  41. ^ "Judges of the Court since 1959 / Les juges de la cour depuis 1959" (PDF). European Court of Human Rights. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 May 2020. Retrieved 11 May 2023.
  42. ^ Amorosa 2022, pp. 420–421.
  43. ^ a b c Simma 1975, p. 135.
  44. ^ Stolleis 2004, 429: "the most important textbook on international law at the time".
  45. ^ a b c d Simma 1995b, p. 54.
  46. ^ Fillafer & Feichtinger 2019, p. 448.
  47. ^ Koeck 2021, p. 70.
  48. ^ Fillafer & Feichtinger 2019, p. 447–447.
  49. ^ Simma 1995a, p. 104.
  50. ^ Busch 2012, p. 140.
  51. ^ Simma 1975, pp. 134–135.
  52. ^ Bernstorff 2010, p. 4.
  53. ^ a b c Gragl 2018, p. 26.
  54. ^ Navari 2021, p. 111.
  55. ^ a b Navari 2021, p. 112.
  56. ^ Koeck 2021, p. 66.
  57. ^ Simma 1995b, p. 44.
  58. ^ Bernstorff 2010, ch. 3.
  59. ^ Gragl 2018, pp. 7–8, 25–26.
  60. ^ Simma 1995b, pp. 38, 45–46.
  61. ^ García-Salmones Rovira 2013, pp. 343–344.
  62. ^ Mannoni 1999, p. 267, who is quoting from Verdross 1928, p. 314.
  63. ^ Simma 1995b, pp. 47–50.
  64. ^ Busch 2012, p. 154.
  65. ^ Staudigl-Ciechowicz & Olechowski 2014, pp. 536–537.
  66. ^ Fillafer & Feichtinger 2019, p. 435.
  67. ^ Sinclair 1970, pp. 66.
  68. ^ Simma 1995b, pp. 50–53.
  69. ^ a b Koskenniemi 2011, p. 57.
  70. ^ Fillafer & Feichtinger 2019, pp. 429–438.
  71. ^ Koeck 2021, pp. 66–70.
  72. ^ Stolleis 2004, pp. 151–152.
  73. ^ Simma 1995b, p. 39.
  74. ^ Raz 1979, pp. 125–126. See Kelsen 1967, pp. 194–195: "It must be presupposed, because it cannot be 'posited,' that is to say: created, by an authority whose competence would have to rest on a still higher norm".
  75. ^ Raz 1979, pp. 127, 132–133. See Kelsen 1967, p. 197: "The basic norm supplies only the reason for the validity, but not at the same time the content of the norms constituting the system".
  76. ^ Laval n.d.
  77. ^ Simma 1995b, p. 49.
  78. ^ Fillafer & Feichtinger 2019, p. 436.
  79. ^ Bernstorff 2010, pp. 59–60.
  80. ^ Carty 1995, pp. 80–81.
  81. ^ Simma 1995b, p. 34.
  82. ^ Koeck 2021, pp. 72–75.
  83. ^ Simma 1995b, p. 33.
  84. ^ Koeck 2021, pp. 75.
  85. ^ Fillafer & Feichtinger 2019, p. 447.
  86. ^ "American Society of International Law. Regulation on the Honors Committee" (PDF). American Society of International Law. Archived (PDF) from the original on 4 December 2022. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
  87. ^ Simma 1975, p. 134.
  88. ^ "Onorificenze" (PDF). Acta Apostolicae Sedis. 51: 285. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 April 2020. Retrieved 10 May 2023.
  89. ^ "Senat S 227.4 Verdross, Alfred, Verleihung des Titels Ehrensenator der Universität Wien, 1959.08.14 – 1966.06.02 (Akt)". scopeq.cc.univie.ac.at. Archived from the original on 9 May 2023. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  90. ^ "Preis der Stadt Wien". www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at. Archived from the original on 14 February 2023. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  91. ^ "Nomination archive: Alfred Verdross". NobelPrize.org. 1 April 2020. Archived from the original on 9 November 2022. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  92. ^ "Nomination archive: Alfred Verdroß-Drossberg". NobelPrize.org. 1 April 2020. Archived from the original on 9 November 2022. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  93. ^ "Verdross, Alfred von nell'Enciclopedia Treccani". www.treccani.it (in Italian). Archived from the original on 10 May 2023. Retrieved 10 May 2023.
  94. ^ "Preisträger des Großen Preises und der Würdigungspreise des Kardinal-Innitzer-Studienfonds ab 1971". Kardinal Innitzer Studienfonds. Archived from the original on 23 March 2023. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  95. ^ "Premi Feltrinelli 1950–2011 | Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei". www.lincei.it (in Italian). Retrieved 10 May 2023.
  96. (PDF) from the original on 21 January 2022. Retrieved 10 May 2023.
  97. ^ Posch, Herbert (1998). "Tore der Erinnerung am Campus der Universität Wien". 650 plus – Geschichte der Universität Wien. University of Vienna. Archived from the original on 10 May 2023. Retrieved 10 May 2023.

References

Further reading

External links