- Person
- Hersch Lauterpacht
- Lived
- 1897–1960
- Field
- International law
- From
- British (born in Austrian Galicia)
The story
The central idea in Hersch Lauterpacht's work was that a state's sovereignty did not entitle its government to treat its own citizens however it wished, and that international law should protect the human rights of individuals. He saw the protection of those rights as one of the primary objects of international society, and he regarded law as a vehicle for ethical values and moral ideals.
In 1942, in the middle of the Second World War, the American Jewish Committee invited Lauterpacht, then Whewell Professor of International Law at Cambridge, to write a book on the international law of human rights. That same year his parents and siblings were murdered by the Nazis in Lviv. The book, encouraged and assisted by the committee, was published in 1945 as An International Bill of the Rights of Man. It argued that the rights of individuals should be protected by international law itself.
The Jewish Historical Society of England describes the book as having had a profound influence on the human rights movement in the years immediately after the war, and a second edition appeared in 1950 as International Law and Human Rights. According to English Heritage, the book helped form the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948, and of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights in 1950.
Lauterpacht himself wanted more than a declaration of principles. The historian Samuel Moyn has noted that he was one of the few international lawyers actively campaigning for human rights in the late 1940s, and that he criticised the final Declaration sharply for falling short of the ideals it proclaimed.
The author and lawyer Philippe Sands has called Lauterpacht a father of the modern human rights movement. Today the principle he championed, that how a government treats its own people is a matter of international concern, underpins the work of human rights bodies around the world.
Why it matters
Lauterpacht helped turn human rights from a moral aspiration into international law that protects individuals against their own governments.
About Hersch Lauterpacht
Galician-born Cambridge jurist who put the individual at the heart of international law, helped bring “crimes against humanity” to Nuremberg, and sat on the World Court.
More about Hersch Lauterpacht
- Hersch Lauterpacht put crimes against humanity into lawHersch Lauterpacht recommended the charges 'war crimes' and 'crimes against humanity' used at Nuremberg, putting the protection of individuals at the heart of international law.
- Hersch Lauterpacht launched the International Law ReportsIn 1929 Hersch Lauterpacht and Arnold McNair started the Annual Digest of International Law Cases, now the International Law Reports, an essential resource running to dozens of volumes.
- Hersch Lauterpacht edited the classic international law textFor 25 years Hersch Lauterpacht edited Oppenheim's International Law so thoroughly that it became known in legal circles as Lauterpacht's Oppenheim.
- Hersch Lauterpacht helped codify the law of treatiesAs a member of the UN International Law Commission in the early 1950s, Hersch Lauterpacht served as its special rapporteur on the law of treaties.
Sources
- Hersch Lauterpacht blue plaque English Heritage
- Sir Hersch Lauterpacht: teacher, writer and judge, a presidential address by Dorothy Stone Jewish Historical Society of England
- Hersch Lauterpacht Wikipedia
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