[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 150 (Wednesday, November 17, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7954-S7955]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        REMEMBERING LOUIS HENKIN

 Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, today I wish to commemorate the 
life of Louis Henkin.
  As chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 
I

[[Page S7955]]

wish to honor the memory of Professor Louis Henkin, known to many as 
the father of human rights law, who passed away last month. He was born 
Eliezer Henkin on November 11, 1917, in modern-day Belarus. He was the 
son of Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin, an authority in Jewish law. Louis, 
as he later became known, came to the United States at the age of five 
in 1923. By 1940, Louis had obtained his law degree from Harvard 
University after receiving his undergraduate degree from Yeshiva 
University.
  Much can be said about Mr. Henkin's contributions to our Nation. As a 
civil servant, Mr. Henkin worked as law clerk for two of the sharpest 
American legal minds, Judge Learned Hand of the U.S. Court of Appeals 
and, later, for Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. Louis also 
served in World War II. He earned a Silver Star, the third highest 
military decoration that can be awarded, for his role in negotiating 
the surrender of 78 German soldiers to his 13-man artillery observation 
unit.
  These accomplishments notwithstanding, it has been Mr. Henkin's 
unquestionable devotion to the cause of human rights which prompts me 
to speak in his memory. It would not be an overstatement to say that 
Mr. Henkin is a pillar in the field of human rights. From 1948 to 1956 
Mr. Henkin worked for the State Department's United Nations Bureau and 
its Office of European Regional Affairs. He is considered one of the 
architects of the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, where the 
defining terms of what it means to be a refugee and the international 
community's responsibility in providing asylum to these individuals 
were set forth. At Columbia University, Professor Henkin helped 
establish the Center for the Study of Human Rights in 1978 and created 
the Human Rights Institute 20 years later. Mr. Henkin was also a 
founder of the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights, which we know now 
as Human Rights First. As a mentor, his influence has been felt by 
generations of legal scholars, including Supreme Court Justices Ruth 
Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor. 
Our colleague on the Helsinki Commission, Assistant Secretary of State 
Michael Posner, is a protege of Professor Henkin.
  Mr. Henkin was a prolific legal scholar. He published more than a 
dozen books on the Constitution, international law, and human rights. 
His scholarship has helped inform and shape the United States 
ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
  The international human rights community mourns the loss of Louis 
Henkin, and we at the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 
join that mourning. Our deepest and most sincere condolences and 
prayers go out to his family and friends. He shall be missed.

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