Immigrant of the Day: Theodor Meron (Poland)

Theodor Meron (born 1930) was the president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) until 2005, and was a judge in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. He now serves as a judge on the Appeal Chamber of the ICTY.

Born in Kalisz, Poland, Theodor Meron received his education at the Hebrew University, Harvard Law School, and Cambridge University . Since 1977, he has been a Professor of International Law and, since 1994, the holder of the Charles L. Denison Chair at New York University School of Law. In 2000-2001, he served as Counselor on International Law in the U.S. Department of State.

Judge Theodor Meron joined the Tribunal in November 2001. Immediately assigned to the Appeals Chamber, Judge Meron has heard numerous cases from both the ICTY and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). In February 2003, his fellow judges elected him President of the ICTY, and he remained in that position until November 2005. Since then he has continued to serve as a judge in the ICTY Appeals Chamber.

Meron also has been Professor of international law at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva and a Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard and at the University of California, Berkeley.

A leading scholar of international humanitarian, human rights, and international criminal law, Judge Meron wrote some of the books and articles that helped build the legal foundations for international criminal tribunals. He was Co-Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of International Law (1993-98) and is now an honorary editor. He is a member of the Board of Editors of the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law. Judge Meron is a member of a number of distinguished professional bodies and associations, including the Institute of International Law (since 1997) and the US Council on Foreign Relations. He has served on the advisory committees or boards of several human rights organisations, including Americas Watch and the International League for Human Rights. He participated in the preparatory commission and the 1998 Rome Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court (ICC). Judge Meron has served on several committees of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and he leads the annual ICRC seminars for U.N. diplomats on international humanitarian law at NYU. He received the 2005 Rule of Law Award of the International Bar Association, the Hudson Medal of the American Society of International Law for extraordinary contributions to international law and has been selected for the 2008 Haskins prize awarded by the American Council of Learned Societies to a distinguished humanist. In 2007 he received the Legion of Honour from France.

KJ