North, Peter

ENCAENIA, MAY, 2002
SIR PETER NORTH
to be Doctor of Laws

The University of New Brunswick is one of the very few universities in North America to call its graduation ceremony Encaenia. We borrowed the term and some of the form from that mother of higher education, Oxford. How fitting it is for us to remind ourselves of that debt as we welcome Sir Peter North, the Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, and formerly the vice-chancellor of the University.

Sir Peter has worn many hats in his long and distinguished career. He is a legal scholar, University administrator, frequent consultant to government, and much respected expert in private international law. He was educated in the law at Oxford; taught law at the University College of Wales, University of Nottingham, and Oxford; and was chairman of the Faculty of Law at Oxford. Besides writing close to seventy refereed articles on subjects ranging from the conflict of law to road traffic law, civil and criminal proceedings, and breach of contract, he has emerged as a recognized expert in the broad field of international private law. For the lay person, that means he has been interested in how the law governs international business transactions, foreign divorce proceedings and other aspects of family law, and private contracts within the framework of new transnational structures such as the European Economic Community, just to take some examples. For the student and professional, the standard text is Cheshire and North's Private International Law, now in its 13th edition, a work with which Sir Peter has been associated since 1970, one of his several books. His expertise has put him in demand around the world. He has guest lectured at more than a dozen academic institutions internationally, and he has been visiting professor at the universities of Auckland, New Zealand, and British Columbia, the latter on three separate occasions.

Sir Peter's background and expertise has similarly created a demand for his advice and service by successive British governments. He has been a member of United Kingdom delegations negotiating the Brussels Convention, the Rome Convention, and the European Economic Community, in matters related to the international enforcement of contractual obligations, insurance law, and commercial matters. Since 1998, he has chaired the Hague Judgments Convention Advisory Committee, advising the Lord Chancellor on the negotiation of a worldwide judgments convention. In addition, he has chaired public commissions whose recommendations have had a broad public impact. His Road Traffic Law Review became the cornerstone of the Road Traffic Act of 1991. He tackled the difficult matter of parades and marches in Northern Ireland, and his multi-volume report became the basis of the Public Processions (Northern Ireland) Act of 1998. For his outstanding public service and academic accomplishment, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1989, and he was knighted by the Queen in 1998.

We miss the measure of the man, however, if we simply sketch his public face. He is, perhaps above all else, a man of the University. He has been Principal of Jesus College since 1984, and is deeply committed to the collegiate system. He served for thirteen years as a member of Hebdomadal Council, part of the governing structure of the University, chairing it for four years as vice-chancellor. When the University came, in 1994, to question its structure and methods of operation as it faced the changing world around it, he was the logical choice to head the inquiry. The North Report was delivered to the Congregation of the University in 1998, a prodigious work of 249 pages with 93 recommendations, some of them sweeping. Yet its reception by the University, where debate is practically synonymous with the institution, was remarkably quiet. Sir Peter's committee had so carefully consulted the teaching and research staff, the undergraduates and the graduate students, and had so thoroughly digested their thoughts, that his report essentially told them what they wanted to hear. The message was to retain all that was working well - the collegiate university structure, the tutorial system as the foundation of undergraduate teaching, the heavy emphasis on high level research across the disciplines - and to improve institutional accountability, the effectiveness of decision-making, and aspects of academic organization. Oxford began reforming itself with scarcely a ripple of objection.

For all of us for whom the university teacher and scholar are important, Sir Peter North is a model. He is an Erasmus of the twenty-first century: a man of letters, skilled teacher, dedicated public servant, institutional reformer, and helpmeet in a world of relentless change. Sir Peter, you do us honour by helping us celebrate our Encaenia today. At the end of the ceremony, you will hear us sing that Canada is "the true North, strong and free." Let us not be misunderstood; we are no more truly the North than you are. But if we can find common ground with you on the points of a compass, we shall take it as a privilege.

From: Honoris Causa - UA Case 70, Box 4