IN MEMORIAM THE LEGENDARY PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL LAW Dr M Shah Alam
On 31 August 2020, Bangladesh lost its one of the best legal minds and leading international law scholars, Professor Dr M Shah Alam. He was the country's prominent academic, researcher and a visionary of reforming colonial laws existing in the country. Throughout his research life, he was an active international law expert who was resourceful authority in contemporary international law issues concerning international dispute settlement, international criminal law and human rights, international law of the sea and many others.
Professor Alam was born in Munshigonj and received his primary education at local schools. He passed SSC and HSC from Rajshahi Cadet College with distinction respectively in 1968 and 1970. In the beginning of 1971, he became the student of Economics at the University of Dhaka. However, when the liberation war started in March 1971, he immediately joined the cause of independence struggle as one of the young freedom fighters. After the liberation war, he went to the former Soviet Union on government scholarship for higher studies. He studied there for ten years in Moscow's Patrice Lumumba University of Peoples' Friendship (now known as "The Peoples' Friendship University of Russia"). He did his bachelor's, master's and doctorate in law specialising in international law from the same university. The title of his PhD thesis was "The Delimitation of Maritime Boundaries between Bangladesh and India", and he wrote his master's thesis in Russian language titled (in English) as "The Interpretation of International Treaties" under the supervision of Professor of International Law Dr Makeychev Ivan Alekseevich.
From Moscow he returned to Rajshahi in the early 1980s and started his career as an Assistant Professor at Rajshahi University's Faculty of Law, where he taught for about ten years. In 1992, he joined Chittagong University as an Associate Professor and as founder Dean of the reorganised Faculty of Law and founder Chairman of the Department of Law. He is mostly credited for being one of the pioneers of Clinical Legal Education in Bangladesh. During his tenure at Chittagong University, he introduced and oversaw the clinical method of legal education – the idea of which was subsequently borrowed to and remodelled in other universities. In 1996, he became a full Professor of Law at Chittagong University. During 1999-2000, he served as a Member of Bangladesh Law Commission. In 2009, he became a Member of the Law Commission for the second time. When the then Chairman of the Law Commission Mr Justice Abdur Rashid resigned in 2010, Professor Alam served as the acting Chairman of the Commission till 2013.
Professor Alam published various books on international law and constitutional law, and has edited for several years the Chittagong University Journal of Law. He has a good number of publications in reputed research journals at home and abroad. Some of his scholarly titles in both Bangla and English include Bangladesher Shangbidhanik Itihash O Shongbidhaner Sohoj Path (trans. Constitutional History of Bangladesh and an Easy Reading of the Constitution (Dhaka: New Warsi Book Corporation, 1996); Somokalin Antorjatik Ain (trans. Contemporary International Law) (Dhaka: New Warsi Book Corporation, 2012); Antorjatik Shongothon (trans. International Organisation) (Dhaka: New Warsi Book Corporation, 4th Edition, 2013); Enforcement of International Human Rights Law by Domestic Courts (Dhaka: New Warsi Book Corporation, 1996); Bangladeshe Ain Songskar O Ain Commission (Dhaka: New Warsi Book Corporation, 2015); and Selected Writings on International Law, Constitutional Law and Human Rights (Dhaka: New Warsi Book Corporation, 2015). In his career, he was also a Japan Foundation Fellow at the Tokyo University Faculty of Law (1995-96) and a Senior Fulbright Fellow at the New York University School of Law (2001-2002).
Professor Alam was more than a law teacher. Anyone who came across Professor Alam – be his students, colleagues or anyone – all witnessed his extraordinary human qualities, the thirst for dignity and intelligence combined with a gentle humanity, an interest in the lives and welfare of the common people. The untimely demise of Professor Alam is undoubtedly an irreparable loss to the whole legal education community of Bangladesh.
BY LAW DESK (SOURCE: BANGLADESH LAW COMMISSION & BILIA LIBRARY).