Louis Henkin
Encyclopedia
Louis Henkin widely considered one of the most influential contemporary scholars of international law
International law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...

 and the foreign policy of the United States, was a former president of the American Society of International Law
American Society of International Law
The American Society of International Law is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational membership organization, based in Washington, D.C.. It was founded in 1906, and was chartered by the United States Congress in 1950...

 and of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy
American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy
The American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy, or ASPLP, is a learned society founded in 1955 by political theorist Carl Friedrich. The ASPLP's annual thematic conferences form the foundation for the Nomos series. The ASPLP operates according to a distinctive three-discipline structure...

 and University Professor emeritus at Columbia Law School
Columbia Law School
Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, is one of the oldest and most prestigious law schools in the United States. A member of the Ivy League, Columbia Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Columbia University in New York City. It offers the J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. degrees in...

. He was until his death the chairman of the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

.

Biography

Eliezer Henkin, was born on November 11, 1917, in present-day Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

, the son of Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin
Yosef Eliyahu Henkin
Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin was a prominent Orthodox rabbi in the United States.He was born in 1881 in Klimavichy, Belarus, then in the Russian Empire, and studied at the Slutzker Yeshiva under Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer...

, an authority in Jewish law
Halakha
Halakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...

. His mother died when he was two years old while she was helping deal with a dysentary outbreak and he and his five siblings were raised by his stepmother. The family emigrated to the United States in 1923, residing on the Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....

 of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

. Henkin grew up speaking Yiddish and attended the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School
Rabbi Jacob Joseph School
The Rabbi Jacob Joseph School is an Orthodox Jewish day school located in Staten Island, New York that serves students from nursery through twelfth grade. The school was founded in 1903 and named in honor of Rabbi Jacob Joseph, chief rabbi of New York City's Association of American Orthodox Hebrew...

, learning to speak English in the process of helping his father mail letters to other rabbinic scholars across the country. He earned his undergraduate in 1937 from Yeshiva College, where he majored in mathematics, by which time he had adopted "Louis" as his first name. He took a chance at applying to Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

 after seeing a fellow student at Yeshiva fill out an application. Once he was accepted he was able to attend with the financial assistance of his sister and graduated with an LL.B.
Bachelor of Laws
The Bachelor of Laws is an undergraduate, or bachelor, degree in law originating in England and offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree...

 with the class of 1940. After graduating, he served as a law clerk to Judge Learned Hand
Learned Hand
Billings Learned Hand was a United States judge and judicial philosopher. He served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and later the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit...

 of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals...

.

Henkin enlisted in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 during World War II, where he saw action in the European Theater in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

, Italy, France and Germany. While with a 13-man artillery observation unit serving near Toulon
Toulon
Toulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....

, he was awarded the Silver Star
Silver Star
The Silver Star is the third-highest combat military decoration that can be awarded to a member of any branch of the United States armed forces for valor in the face of the enemy....

 for an incident in which he was able to use his ability to speak Yiddish as a means to negotiate the terms of the surrender of a German unit consisting of 78 men.

After completing his military service, he was a law clerk for Supreme Court Associate Justice
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are the members of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the Chief Justice of the United States...

 Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.-Early life:Frankfurter was born into a Jewish family on November 15, 1882, in Vienna, Austria, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Europe. He was the third of six children of Leopold and Emma Frankfurter...

. The justices would hold their weekly conference on Saturday, and Henkin would sleep on Frankfurter's couch on Friday nights and would refrain from writing while at the conference in order to avoid the performance of activities prohibited on Shabbat. In a 2003 interview, Henkin said that he "did my job as well as I could, observing Shabbat
Shabbat
Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...

 as well as I could" and said that he did not know if Frankfurter—who was not Shomer Shabbat
Shomer Shabbat
A shomer Shabbat or shomer Shabbos is a person who observes the mitzvot associated with Judaism's Shabbat...

—was ever aware that Henkin had been sleeping on his couch.

Beginning in 1948, Henkin worked at the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 bureau of the United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...

, where he was one of the individuals responsible for the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
The United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees is an international convention that defines who is a refugee, and sets out the rights of individuals who are granted asylum and the responsibilities of nations that grant asylum. The Convention also sets out which people do not...

 in 1951, an agreement that established the internationally agreed upon definition of what constitutes a refugee
Refugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...

 and established the requirements for countries to provide asylum to individuals so designated. He left the State department in 1956 to teach for a year at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 on the subject of nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated....

 which became the subject matter for his 1958 book Arms Control and Inspection in American Law. He taught at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

 starting in 1958, continuing his work that was published as The Berlin Crisis
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War and the first resulting in casualties. During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway and road access to the sectors of Berlin under Allied...

 and the United Nations
in 1959 and the book Disarmament: The Lawyer's Interests, which was released in 1964.

While teaching at Columbia Law School starting in the early 1960s and through the Justice and Society Program of the Aspen Institute
Aspen Institute
The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1950 as the Aspen Institute of Humanistic Studies. The organization is dedicated to "fostering enlightened leadership, the appreciation of timeless ideas and values, and open-minded dialogue on contemporary issues." The...

, Henkin specialized in the development and instruction of human rights law, which he put into practice by establishing the university's Center for the Study of Human Rights in 1978 and creating the Human Rights Institute in 1998. Elisa Massimino, president and chief executive officer of Human Rights First
Human Rights First
Human Rights First is a nonprofit, nonpartisan human rights organization based in New York City and Washington, D.C....

, the nonpartisan organization originally formed by Henkin as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, said that he "literally and figuratively wrote the book on human rights" and that "[i]t is no exaggeration to say that no American was more instrumental in the development of human rights law than Lou".

Written while Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

 was conducting the American involvement in the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

, his 1972 book Foreign Affairs and the Constitution described the division of responsibility between the President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 and the Congress in conducting foreign affairs and military action, exploring how the executive branch had achieved a great measure of control despite the fact that the Constitution grants the legislative branch the power to declare war. As the practice of foreign affairs had become more complex, he detailed how Congress had gradually acceded to the President greater control in conducting American foreign relations and showed that it had not taken adequate precautions in the way these powers were wielded by the executive. In his 1990 work Constitutionalism, Democracy and Foreign Affairs Henkin reiterated his concerns about the growth of the Imperial Presidency
Imperial Presidency
Imperial Presidency is a term that became popular in the 1960s and that served as the title of a 1973 volume by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. to describe the modern presidency of the United States...

 and its effect on the way the nation's foreign affairs were conducted, emphasizing that the preservation of human rights must play an important role. This and other books such as The Rights of Man Today, How Nations Behave, and Age of Rights, comprised a collection of works that The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

described in his obituary as being "required reading for government officials and diplomats". He was the Chief Reporter of the influential Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States.

Professor Henkin died at age 92 on October 14, 2010, at his home in Manhattan after a long illness. He was survived by his wife, Alice Hartman Henkin, as well as by three sons and five grandchildren. His eldest, Joshua Henkin, is a novelist. His second son, David Henkin, is a professor of American history at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

. His youngest son, Daniel Henkin, is the Director of Music at the Ramaz School
Ramaz School
The Ramaz School is a coeducational, private Modern Orthodox Jewish prep school located on the Upper East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It consists of a lower school , a middle school , and an upper school .The Ramaz Upper School is a college preparatory school...

.

External links

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