Walther Schücking was one of most prominent international lawyers of his generation, and yet an outsider among the German legal academic establishment. He was a progressive liberal who placed great trust in the civilizing role of international law, and yet, when serving as a World Court judge from 1930 to 1935, seemed to integrate quickly into the Court’s most conservative bench. His views were said to be ‘destined to become the law of the future’, and yet his influence on the codification and progressive development of the ‘international law of the future’ after World War II was negligible. So who was Walther Schücking, and in what respect, if any, is he part of a European Tradition in International Law? This article introduces Schücking and the main features of his work, and therefore sets the stage for the subsequent, more specialized contributions to the Schücking symposium.