I would like to thank the individuals who have helped me most while I was working on this PhD thesis. In the first place, thanks are due to my Doktorvater, Professor Christian Tomuschat. He was a constant source of inspiration and encouragement for me, and I feel really fortunate that I could be Professor Tomuschat’s doctoral student. To Professor Gerd Seidel, the second corrector of my thesis, I am also thankful for his positive appraisal of my dissertation. In addition, I would like to acknowledge my intellectual debt to my former teachers of international law: Professor Dietrich Rauschning from Göttingen and Professors David P. Stewart, Edith Brown Weiss and Anthony Clark Arend from Georgetown University.
I would also like to thank Bardo Fassbender, Christian Fulda, Edgar Lenski, Ian Pepper, Moritz von Plate, Tilmann Röder, Sebastian von Schweinitz and Carola Wolprecht for their friendship and support during my three years of PhD studies in Berlin. My family in Estonia, and especially my sister Maria, always sent me positive energy waves while I was writing the thesis.
The writing of this dissertation would not have been possible without generous help from two institutions. During the first year of my PhD studies, I was a recipient of a scholarship awarded by the Foundation of the Parliament of Berlin. I would like to thank Professor Arnulf Baring for this scholarship. During the second and third years, I was supported by a scholarship from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation—for which I would like to express my gratitute to Dr. Detlev Preusse.
Last but not least, I am very grateful to Professor Martti Koskenniemi both for accepting my dissertation for publication in the Erik Castrén Institute’s series and making valuable suggestions for improvement of the manuscript. Nevertheless, it goes without saying that I am solely responsible for any errors or omissions in this book.
Lauri Mälksoo