Christian Wiktor, Professor Emeritus, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, died peacefully on Sunday, April 3, 2022, at the age of eighty-eight. He is survived by his wife, Bodil Wiktor, of Halifax, Nova Scotia; two daughters, Marie Wiktor of Halifax, and Monique Trifos of Columbia, South Carolina; his son, Tom, of Halifax; two sisters; a niece; and grandchildren and great nieces and nephews.
Christian served as the Sir James Dunn Law Librarian (Director of the Law Library) and Professor of Law at Dalhousie University from 1971 until his retirement in 1998. Prior to joining the faculty of Dalhousie University, he served in library positions at the New York Public Library and the State University of New York at Buffalo Faculty of Law. He studied international law, specializing in the law of treaties, at the University of Paris, the Sorbonne, under Professor Suzanne Basdevant Bastid. He supported himself as a student in post-World War II Europe, taking part-time jobs as a laundry deliverer on his scooter and as a waiter in a Parisian nightclub. He emigrated to the United States to pursue a career in librarianship and earned a Master of Library Science at the library school of Columbia University in New York City. Prior to his retirement in 1998, Christian regularly attended meetings of the International Association of Law Libraries (IALL) and the American Society of International Law (ASIL). He served on the Board of Directors of IALL from 1980 to 1983 and served as Chair of the IALL Nominations Committee in the 1990s.
Christian was an expert on treaty law and published numerous reference works on treaties, including the Canadian Treaty Calendar, 1928–78; the Index to Canadian Treaties, 1979–2003 = Index des Traités du Canada, 1979–2003; the Multilateral Treaty Calendar: 1648–1995; Unperfected Treaties of the United States of America, 1776–1976; Treaties Submitted to the United States Senate: Legislative History, 1989–2004, and other international law reference works, such as the Canadian Bibliography of International Law, first published in 1984. He co-authored Constitutions of Canada: Federal and Provincial. Christian Wiktor developed the Dalhousie Law Library's acclaimed Marine Affairs Collection and was the founder and editor of the Marine Affairs Bibliography, a current and comprehensive index of marine law and policy literature (1980–1992) to support the work of the Schulich School of Law's Marine & Environmental Law Institute. He served as a member of the Board of Editors of the Ocean Yearbook, a publication on ocean governance and policy sponsored by the Oceans Institute of Canada. Prior to his passing, Christian was working on a continuation of the Treaties Submitted to the United States Senate: Legislative History, covering the period 1789–1988.
In the summer of 1985, lightning struck the Dalhousie Law Library and burned about 60,000 books and damaged thousands more.Footnote 1 With the help of staff, volunteers, and a book drying and reclamation company from California, Christian expertly navigated the disastrous fire that destroyed one floor of the Dalhousie Law Library and severely damaged another. Because the card catalog burned in the fire, the entire collection was recataloged online.
Christian was an avid traveler. In addition to regularly visiting family in Europe, he and his own family travelled to other parts of the world, including Tahiti, Turkey, and Greece. He meticulously planned these trips and had a large personal collection of travel guides from his numerous journeys.
I had the good fortune of knowing Christian, beginning in 2008, when he would come to Columbia, South Carolina, to visit his daughter, son-in-law, and grandson each spring, escaping the cold of Nova Scotia. During his month-long trip, he would come to the University of South Carolina's law school to research the continuation of his book Treaties Submitted to the United States Senate: Legislative History. We had several delightful conversations both about his extensive travels and his work on the bibliography of treaties. His knowledge of treaties was extensive, and because of his expertise and prolific scholarship, he had unparalleled access to the U.S. Senate Library, the National Archives, and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., which greatly aided his research. I was honored when he asked me to edit his latest reference work. I was able to visit Christian in Halifax in December 2021 to discuss his work on U.S. treaties.
Christian was a model of the librarian-scholar who managed an academic law library and its collections and services and published lasting reference works important to scholars of international law, treaties, and marine law and affairs.
