In closing
I would like to mention
2 special cases which occurred
over the 2 decades that I served on the selection comittee here in Belgium.
The first one involves
a young couple,
Hans Van Houtte and Vera Van Houtte, who had graduated in the top of their class at the Leuven law school,
and who came to us and told us that they were engaged
and when we interviewed them, separately of course,
each one said: "If one of us gets the scholarship,
then you should give it to the other".
As it turned out, Vera Van Houtte
Vera Van Houtte
got the Belgian scholarship and Hans Van Houtte won the international scholarship.
And Vera went on to a very distinguished legal career,
both in the private sector and also doing important work for legal organizations
in the public sector.
And Hans has just celebrated
his emeritus status at the university of Louvain law school at Leuven
and he is now the president of
the US - Iran Claims Commission in The Hague.
Commission in The Hague.
The second, other
unique case
which occurred,
not surprisingly
involved
his Excellency Luc Frieden,
our keynote speaker this evening.
Luc applied in the mid-eighties
for the international legal scholarship,
having just finished
his degree
at the Paris law school
at the top of his class.
And while he was studying law there,
he also did important work
for Radio Luxembourg
which was based in Paris at that time,
and he also helped
the Luxembourg Prime Minister
revising the constitution of Luxembourg.
So we thought this was a really outstanding candidate
and we sent his application to Harvard
with every expectation that he would be admitted.
Well, imagine our surprise when Harvard came back to us and said that they would give Luc a deferred admission (only at Harvard).
And the reason they stated was that
they felt that Luc was simply too young to come
to Cambridge and engage in the LL.M program.
When we mentioned this to Luc,
he - with his inimitable enthusiasm -
went off to Cambridge University in England
and obtained an international law degree there
under professor Lauterpacht
As coincidence would have it,
professor Lauterpacht's father, sir Lauterpacht, who became a judge on the World Court at The Hague when he was a
a member of the International Law Commission in 1953,
offered me to study under him
at Cambridge under the same program,
when I was
the assistant
to judge Manley Hudson,
my international law professor at Harvard
who at that time
was the American chairman
of the International Law Commission.
Well, Luc returned
to us
in Brussels,
and we sent off his
application for the second time.
And this time, Harvard felt that Luc was old enough
to come to Cambridge
and follow the LL.M program there, which of course
he completed with his usual brilliance.
And we all know about
his subsequent career,
when he also became
the youngest member
of the Luxembourg cabinet
Let me finish
by thanking all of you once again for all you have done
and express the hope
that this program
will always continue
as long has Harvard
and the Fulbright program
exists. Thank you.