Louis Henkin (November 11, 1917 – October 14, 2010), widely considered one of the most influential contemporary scholars of international law and the foreign policy of the United States, who was "often credited with creating the field of human rights law". He was a former president of the American Society of International Law and of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy and University Professor emeritus at Columbia Law School. He was until his death the chairman of the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. He was a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. Biography He was born Eliezer Henkin on November 11, 1917, in Smolyany, in present-day Belarus, the son of Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin, an authority in Jewish law. His mother died when he was two years old while she was helping deal with a dysentery outbreak and he and his five siblings were raised by his stepmother. The family emigrated to the United States in 1923, residing on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Henkin grew up speaking Yiddish and attended the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School, learning to speak English in the process of helping his father mail letters to other rabbinic scholars across the country. He earned his undergraduate in 1937 from Yeshiva College, where he majored in mathematics, by which time he had adopted "Louis" as his first name. He took a chance at applying to Harvard Law School after seeing a fellow student at Yeshiva fill out an application. Once he was accepted he was able to attend with the financial assistance of his sister and graduated with an Bachelor of Laws with the class of 1940. After graduating, he served as a law clerk to Judge Learned Hand of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Henkin enlisted in the United States Army in June 1941 and saw action during World War II in the European Theater in Sicily, Italy, France and Germany. While with a 13-man artillery observation unit serving near Toulon, he was awarded the Silver Star for an incident in which he was able to use his ability to speak Yiddish as a means to negotiate the terms of the surrender of a German unit consisting of 78 men. He became a corporal. After completing his military service, he was a law clerk