Wolfgang Gaston Friedmann (25 January 1907 – 20 September 1972) was a German American legal scholar. Specializing in international law, he was a faculty member at

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world and has always ranked i ...

Biography

Born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

, Friedmann finished his studies of law at the

Humboldt University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative ...

in 1930. Being

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

, he immigrated to the United States shortly after the Nazis' seizure of power in Germany. Prior to 1955 he was a professor at the

University of Toronto Law School The University of Toronto Faculty of Law (U of T Law, UToronto Law) is the law school of the University of Toronto. The Faculty's admissions process is the most selective of law schools in Canada and is one of the most selective in North Americ ...

in Toronto. In 1955, he became a professor of international law at

, where he founded the ''

Columbia Journal of Transnational Law The ''Columbia Journal of Transnational Law'' is a law review edited and published by students at Columbia Law School. The journal publishes scholarly articles and student notes on issues of transnational law. Ranking and Citations The ''Columb ...

''. In 1972, he was robbed and stabbed to death in front of Public School 36 at Amsterdam Avenue between 122d and 123d Streets near Columbia's campus in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. The

Wolfgang Friedmann Memorial Award The ''Columbia Journal of Transnational Law'' is a law review edited and published by students at Columbia Law School. The journal publishes scholarly articles and student notes on issues of transnational law. Ranking and Citations The ''Columb ...

was established in his honor.

Biography

References

Further reading