Percy E. Corbett

1972 Read Medal Recipient 

B.A. (McGill), B.A.(Oxford), M.A. (McGill) M.A. (Oxford)

Percy E. Corbett was an international law scholar. He received the Military Cross during WWI. In 1943, he went to Yale University as a Professor of Government and Jurisprudence Professor of Law and became Professor Emeritus (1958). He joined the Center for International Studies at Princeton (1951) and lectured at The Hague, California and New Delhi. Professor Corbett was influential throughout Canada in improving legal education, redefining the university’s role in the postwar world and in developing the science of international law in Canada. He was active in challenging the injustices of the national as well as the international political and economic systems of the day. He wrote numerous articles and books, including “Law and Society in the Relations of States”, “The Growth of World Law” and, with C.B. Joynt, “Theory and Reality in World Politics”. Mr. Corbett was widely recognized as one of Canada’s greatest international law scholars and an innovative thinker.