Eritrea, Ethiopia: Sir Arthur Watts Passes Away

04 December 2007

Sir Arthur Watts, appointed by Ethiopia as member of the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission that arbitrated the border dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia died on November 16 aged 76. An international lawyer, diplomat and arbitrator; much of his career was spent at the Foreign Office, to which he was the Legal Adviser from 1987 to 1991.

By its very nature Watts's work was inconspicuous to the wider public; but he made a significant contribution in a number of demanding arenas.

From 1959 to 1962 he was in Cairo, based at the Property Commission (later reincarnated as the British embassy), where he had to grapple with the consequences of the massive nationalisation by President Nasser of British property interests in Egypt.

Watts played an important part in administering the settlement under which the Egyptians eventually paid some £27.5 million compensation (a substantial sum in those days).

After Britain entered the EEC in 1973 Watts spent four years helping to establish the framework for Britain's relations with the various community bodies in Brussels.

After five years as deputy legal adviser at the Foreign Office, in 1987 Watts graduated to the top job, in which he was the fount of legal advice for the diplomatic service. His retirement in 1991, at the age of 60, heralded a period, which continued until his death, in which he was much in demand internationally as an advocate and arbitrator.

He had the distinction of becoming the first British advocate to be retained by the French government; when France was involved in a dispute with New Zealand and Australia over nuclear testing in the Pacific, Watts appeared on her behalf at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague in 1995. Other nations he represented at the ICJ included Nigeria, Indonesia, the Slovak Republic, Colombia, Ukraine and Jordan.

Following the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s it became necessary for its constituent states to agree on how to share out the assets, and meet the liabilities, of the old Yugoslavia.

The mediator between the disputing parties was Watts, and he played the essential role in reaching the settlements achieved; it was a difficult task, and one that occupied him for five years from 1996.

Arthur Desmond Watts was born on November 14 1931, the only son of an Army officer, and was educated at Haileybury and the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.

He read Economics and Law at Downing College, Cambridge; as a post-graduate he was awarded the university's Whewell Scholarship in International Law. In 1957, the year after he had joined the Foreign Office as a legal assistant, he was called to the Bar by Gray's Inn. He took Silk in 1988.

In later life Watts continued to practise from his chambers at 20 Essex Street. He arbitrated in disputes between Eritrea and Ethiopia; Malaysia and Singapore; the United Kingdom and Ireland; and Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.

He also mediated or adjudicated in various cases involving international foreign investment. At the time of his death he was serving as president of an arbitration tribunal hearing a dispute, arising out of a state's currency collapse, between that state and a private party with whom there was a bilateral investment treaty.

Over the past 45 years he had served on many British negotiating teams abroad, dealing with a host of matters from Antarctic mineral resources to human rights.

Watts was appointed CMG in 1977 and KCMG in 1989.

Among his publications was Oppenheim's International Law (volume one, 9th edition, with Sir Robert Jennings, 1992), which remains the undisputed authority in the field.

He also published Legal Effects of War (4th edition, with Lord McNair, 1966); Encyclopaedic Dictionary of International Law (with C and A Parry and J Grant, 1986); International Law and the Antarctic Treaty System (1992); Self-Determination and Self-Administration, (with WF Danspeckgruber, 1997); and The International Law Commission 1949-1998 (three volumes, 1999-2000).

Watts was much liked and respected throughout the profession. He was president of the British branch of the International Law Association from 1992 to 1998. In 1997 he was elected a member of the Institut de Droit International.

An accomplished cricketer, Watts won his county cap for Shropshire in 1955. In 1985 he organised a cricket match at the South Pole, assembling two teams from nationals of the various states with a stake in Antarctica. Thus the players included Argentines, Chileans and Americans; his one regret was that he failed to secure the services of the editors of Wisden.

He married, in 1957, Iris Collier, an author of romantic thrillers and crime fiction, with whom he had a son and a daughter. He and his wife had separated, but they never divorced and remained on friendly terms. She and their children survive him, as does his companion of recent years, Cecilia Gillette. telegraph.co.uk