Background
Hersch Lauterpacht born in Galicia. From his earliest years he demonstrated that seriousness of mind, wide reading and the moral purpose which were to be the marks of his scholarship throughout his life.
Hersch Lauterpacht born in Galicia. From his earliest years he demonstrated that seriousness of mind, wide reading and the moral purpose which were to be the marks of his scholarship throughout his life.
He studied at the Jan Kazimierz University, although it is not clear whether he actually graduated: Lauterpacht wrote that he had not been able to take the final examinations "because the university has been closed to Jews in Eastern Galicia". His university study was carried out in Vienna in the years immediately following the First World War. There he obtained two degrees, first Doctor of Laws and then Doctor of Political Science. His doctoral thesis, written in German, was on the then entirely new subject of The International Mandate in the Covenant of the League of Nations.
He studied at the Universities of Lviv, Vienna and London.
In 1927 he was appointed assistant lecturer at the London School of Economics and, in 1932, reader in public international law at the University of London. He held the post of professor at The Hague Academy of International Law. From 1938 to 1955 he was Whewell professor of international law at the University of Cambridge. In 1955 he became a barrister and judge of the International Court of Justice, The Hague, a position he held until his death.
Lauterpacht served as a member of the British War Crimes Executive (1945-1946) and the United Nations International Law Commission (1951-1955). He was president of the French-Swedish and the Norwegian-Portuguese Conciliation Commissions from 1951, and a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
The whole life Lauterpacht remained true to his Judaism and was a staunch Zionist. In his youth, he participated in the organization of Jewish self-defense in Galicia, after the First World War was the first president of the World Union of Jewish Students. Shortly before his death a few months Lauterpacht was visiting Israel.
He was a Zionist and active in Jewish affairs, and served as the first president of the World Union of Jewish Students on its formation after World War I.