This brief chapter discusses the life and work of felice Morgenstern, the first female Whewell scholar at Cambridge University, and for many years an international civil service working at the International Labour Organization. The chapter’s main theme is that Morgenstern’s academic timing was somewhat ‘off’: she was often a little ahead of her time in the sort of questions she would ask herself, and the sort of topics she would broach. Nonetheless, she left a clear mark in the field of international organizations law, having been among the first to think of ‘legality’ in connection with international organizations, and having been among the first (very likely, the first) to scrutinize the relations between international organizations inter se.
Jan Klabbers is professor of International Law at the University of Helsinki.