Richard Anderson Falk (born November 13, 1930) is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, and Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor's Chairman of the Board of Trustees. In 2004, he was listed as the author or coauthor of 20 books and the editor or coeditor of another 20 volumes. Falk has published extensively with multiple books written about international law and the United Nations. In 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed Falk to a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. Early life and education Falk was born into an assimilationist New York Jewish family. Defining himself as "an American Jew", he says that having an outsider status, with a sense of not belonging, may have influenced his later role as a critic of American foreign policy. His being Jewish signifies above all for Falk, "to be preoccupied with overcoming injustice and thirsting for justice in the world, and that means being respectful toward other peoples regardless of their nationality or religion, and empathetic in the face of human suffering whoever and wherever victimization is encountered." Falk obtained a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania in 1952 before completing a Bachelor of Laws degree at Yale Law School. He obtained his Doctorate in Law (SJD) from Harvard University in 1962. His early thinking was influenced by readings of Karl Marx, Herbert Marcuse, and C. Wright Mills, and he developed an overriding concern with projects to abolish war and aggression as social institutions. Professional career Falk began his teaching career at Ohio State University and Harvard in the late 1950s. In 1961, he moved to Princeton University, which served as his academic affiliation for over thirty years. He was appointed Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice in 1965, a position he retains as Emeritus professor. In 1985, he became a Guggenheim Fellow. He retired from teaching in 2001. Since 2002, he has been a research professor at the Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara. As of 2013, he was director of the Global Climate Change, Human Security, and Democracy project. Falk is a critic of the Westphalian system of nation states, which he argues must be transcended by a more international institution to control the resort