Leading lawyer to receive rare honour
A blue plaque is to be erected at the former home of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht QC
The lawyer who devised the concept of crimes against humanity will be honoured next month when English Heritage unveils one of its famous blue plaques at his former home in London.
Sir Hersch Lauterpacht QC was born in 1897 near the city now known as Lviv, in western Ukraine. He came to England in 1923. With his wife Rachel he later moved to a terraced house at Walm Lane, Cricklewood, in north-west London. That’s where their son, Eli (later Sir Elihu Lauterpacht CBE QC, 1928-2017) was born.
In 1945, Hersch Lauterpacht, by then professor of international law at Cambridge, played a key role in the first trial of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. From 1955 to 1960, the year he died, he was the British judge at the International Court of Justice.
How did Lauterpacht achieve the rare honour of a plaque in his memory? It’s an intriguing story.
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