The Lauterpacht Centre for International Law which celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in July 2008 has acquired a well-earned reputation for excellence in teaching and research in international law. It has attracted scholars and students from around the world and, under the guidance of its founder, Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, has contributed significantly to the development of international law in the international community.

The Sir Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures, a three-part lecture given annually in Cambridge, commemorates the unique contribution to the development of international law of the late Hersch Lauterpacht, noted scholar, teacher and judge of the International Court of Justice. In recent years the focus of these lectures has been on the United Nations and the use of force. Three of the lectures have in fact constituted a kind of trilogy: the 2004 lectures by Hans Blix on the ‘The United Nations and Iraq – reflections on the use of force, on international inspections and on UN reform’; the 2006 lectures by Michael Wood dealt with ‘The United Nations Security Council and international law’; and in 2008 Ralph Zacklin delivered the lectures entitled ‘The UN Secretariat and the use of force in a unipolar world’. Although each of these lectures is a self-contained series, the fact that they were delivered by the former Executive Chairman of the United Nations Monitoring,Verification and Inspection Commission, a former Legal Adviser of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and a former Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs of the United Nations produced an unusual and interesting synergy in the examination of some of the most dramatic events of our recent history.