Book Reviews Edward McWhinney, Judge Shigeru Oda and the Progressive Development of International Law, Dordrecht, Boston, London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (1993) 666 + xvii pages. $175; £123.50. According to the author, this is the first book in a series dealing with leading international judges. This book analyzes the contribution of Judge Oda to the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and to the development of international law. The analysis seeks not only to deal with the specific content of each of Judge Oda's decisions on the bench, but also to draw a broader picture of his, and the ICJ as an institution, judicial philosophy. The combination of Judge Oda's career stops - a diplomat, an international law scholar (expert on the law of the sea), and a judge on the ICJ - and his legal education -exposed to European continental influences as a student in Japan, and to American influences as a graduate student at Yale Law School under the supervision of Professor McDougal - is enough, in itself, to make the book fascinating reading. The book's strength lies in the original task undertaken by the author, which he carries out well. The major weakness of the book is that which is missing from it. The author explains on several occasions that the episodic, hit-or-miss nature of the ICJ agenda, and the relatively small number of cases brought before it, makes it difficult to fully comprehend the legal and judicial philosophy of the judges, in general, and their approach to specific areas of international law, in particular. In other places, the author emphasizes the extra-judicial scholarly work in which Judge Oda has been engaged throughout his career. However, the book fails to put the two together and to examine Oda's extensive scholarly work in order to complete the picture painted by judicial decisions. In that respect the book focuses on Judge Oda, without taking advantage of the available writings of Professor Oda, thus missing a valuable source of analysis. All in all, the book undoubtedly adds an important tool to understanding and analyzing the institution of the ICJ, and as such is of interest to students of the Court. Oren Gross Harvard Law School
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