Passing of a Giant, Igor I. Kavass

Roy Mersky (Texas) reports that Igor Kavass passed away Sunday. An expert on international and comparative legal research, Igor Kavass served as Director of law libraries at Vanderbilt, Duke, Northwestern and Alabama. He was born in Riga, Latvia in 1932 and educated in Europe and Australia. He received his LL.B. in 1956 from the University of Melbourne, where he served as editor of the Melbourne Law Review. He briefly practiced law as a barrister and solicitor in Melbourne, Australia. Active in many professional organizations, Igor Kavass was President of the International Association of Law Libraries, 1976-1983, and served as chair of the Board of Directors at the International Institute for Legal Information

Igor Kavass spent much of his career identifying and obtaining treaties and agreements entered into by the United States since 1950 that have not yet been published in UST or TIAS, and assigning them a unique "KAV" number to aid in their identification. These KAV Agreements were the first source for locating the text of unpublished U.S. treaties and other international agreements in one location. His Guide to Treaties in Force, designed to be used in conjunction with TIF, greatly expanded upon the rather simplistic approach of the U.S. Department of State's indexing by providing access points well beyond those found in TIF. With the late Adolf Sprudzs (Chicago), he edited U.S. Treaty Indexing Service, Current Treaty Index and UST Cumulative Indexing Service, all Hein titles. Also published by Hein, his United States Legislation on Foreign Relations and International Commerce (edited with Michael Blake) received the American Society of International Law Certificate of Merit and Soviet Law in English Research Guide and Bibliography, 1970-1987, was awarded the Joseph L. Andrews Bibliographical Award.

Our deepest sympathy and thoughts are with the family, friends and colleagues of Igor Kavass today. [JH]