Congratulation Speech By Robert Feenstra On this memorable occasion one of the foreign guests at the Anniversary Symposion should congratulate the Olin Foundation on its fiftieth birthday and express at the same time the warmest thanks of all those who were so kindly invited, not only to deliver papers but also just to be present. I think that I am the doyen d’agc of tonight’s company and that for that reason alone I am entitled to give this little speech. But I may have some stronger arguments to be spokesman today. Mv main qualification mthis context could be that I ampresident of the Association internationale d’histoire du droit et des institutions. Only institutions can be members of this societv and one of them is the Olin Foundation. But the Association has a special link with Sweden. The initiative for its erection was taken in Stockholm, on the occasion of the eleventh International Congress of Historical Sciences in 1960. One of the three founding fathers was Sture Petren, w'ho also played such an important role in the Olin Foundation. I have had the privilege of knowing him rather well, in particular in the years duringwhich he was a judge at the International Court of Justice in The Hague (1967-1976). Among the members of the Association internationale d’histoire du droit et des institutions there are three societies of legal history which I would like to associate with my congratulations to the Olin Foundation. In the first place the Socicte Jean Bodin pour I’histoire comparative des institutions, of which I happen to be president as well. Representatives of the Olin Foundation have been regular contributors to and visitors of its meetings. On one occasion the Olin Foundation was host for such a meeting: in 1993, when the Scacicte Jean Bodin gathered in Copenhagen, we were very kindly invited to come to Lund for one of our sessions and a splendid dinner was offered to us in the University building. Secondly I would like to speak on behalf of the Société d’histoire du droit, which is not only a French but also an international society, as is demonstrated inter alia by the fact that I am one of its three vice-presidents. It is one of the oldest legal history societies (founded in 1913). Representatives of the Olin Foundation have also very faithfully attended its international congresses. The third member of the Association I want to mention today is the Socictc internationale “Fernand de Visscher” pour I’histoire des droits de 1’antiquité.
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