Thomas Buergenthal is known as one of the youngest holocaust victims to survive places like Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen, which were horrific concentration camps. The first 11 years of his life were spent under German authority. It is known that when the Germans were pushed out by the Soviet army in January 1945, the Germans forced the victims out by marching them; it was a long haul, people began to get tired and if they stopped they were executed. Buergenthal was one of the few children to survive the three day march to Sachenhausen, where Buergenthal and his family would soon be liberated. Buergenthal, born to German-Jewish/Polish-Jewish parents who had moved from Germany to Czechoslovakia in 1933, grew up in the Jewishghetto of Kielce and later in the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen. After the War he lived with his mother in Göttingen. On 4 December 1951, he emigrated from Germany to the United States. He studied at Bethany College in West Virginia, and received his J.D. at New York University Law School in 1960, and his LL.M. and S.J.D. degrees in international law from Harvard Law School. Judge Buergenthal is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees from American, European and Latin American Universities.
Career
Buergenthal is a specialist in international law and human rights law. Buergenthal served as a judge on the International Court of Justice at The Hague from 2 March 2000 to his resignation on 6 September 2010. Prior to his election to the International Court of Justice, he was the Lobingier Professor of Comparative Law and Jurisprudence at The George Washington University Law School. He was Dean of Washington College of Law of American University from 1980 to 1985, and held endowed professorships at the University of Texas and Emory University. Buergenthal served as a judge for many years, including lengthy periods on various specialized international bodies. Between 1979 and 1991, he served as a judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, including a term as that court's president; from 1989 to 1994, he was a judge on the Inter-American Development Bank's Administrative Tribunal; in 1992 and 1993, he served on the United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador; and from 1995 to 1999, he was a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Buergenthal is the author of more than a dozen books and a large number of articles on international law, human rights and comparative law subjects. He is member of a number of editorial boards of law journals, including the American Journal of International Law. Buergenthal was the sole dissenter in the Israeli Wall advisory opinion, where the ICJ found 14-1 that the Israeli-built barrier into the occupied West Bank violates international law and should be torn down. Judge Buergenthal is a co-recipient of the 2008 Gruber Prize for Justice for his contributions to the promotion and protection of human rights in different parts of the world, and particularly in Latin America. He is also a recipient of the following awards: Goler T. Butcher Medal, American Society of International Law, 1997; Manley O. Hudson Medal, American Society of International Law, 2002; Elie Wiesel Award, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, 2015; and Olympic Order, International Olympic Committee, 2015. His memoir, A Lucky Child, which describes his experience in various German concentration camps, has been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Selected works
Vol. 2 Vol. 3
, Thomas, Shelton, Stewart, 4th ed.
, 5th ed., 4th ed.
Lectures
in the "The Lawmaking Role of International Tribunals," Dean Fred F. Herzog Memorial Lecture, October 17, 2011, The John Marshall Law School, Chicago, Illinois.
