Kurt Lipstein

Kurt Lipstein QC (19 March 1909 – 2 December 2006) was a German-born legal scholar. Of Jewish descent, Lipstein emigrated after the Machtergreifung. Lipstein was a renowned specialist in Roman law and conflict of laws within private international law and public international law and pioneer in comparative law.

Born in Frankfurt am Main, Lipstein earned his Abitur from Goethe-Gymnasium in 1927. He enrolled at the University of Grenoble, and later finished his studies at the University of Berlin. Among his academic advisors were Martin Wolff, Ernst Rabel, and Ernst von Caemmerer. In 1934 he emigrated to the United Kingdom, and earned his doctorate at Clare College, Cambridge in 1936.

After World War II, in which he spent some time in an internment camp, he became a fellow at Clare College, and served as Professor of Comparative Law at the University of Cambridge 1973–1976.

Further reading

• Forsyth, Christopher (2004). "Kurt Lipstein (*1909)". In Beatson, J.; Zimmermann, R. Jurists uprooted: German-speaking émigré lawyers in twentieth-century Britain. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 463–482. ISBN 0-19-927058-9.