SCHACHTER, Oscar 1915-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born June 19, 1915, in New York, NY; died of complications from heart disease, December 13, 2003, in Manhattan, NY. Attorney, educator, and author. Schachter was an expert on international law whose work as a legal advisor to the United Nations has been credited with shaping the legal framework of the UN's peacekeeping mission. A graduate of City College (now of the City University of New York) in 1936, he earned a law degree from Columbia University in 1939, finishing first in his class. Admitted to the New York Bar that year, he worked briefly in private practice before being hired by the U.S. Department of Labor in 1940. Serving in various State Department posts during World War II, Schachter became an expert on international legal and economic issues. He traveled to such countries as Poland and the Soviet Union, becoming a legal counselor to the United Nations' Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in 1944. In 1946, he became senior legal counselor to the Secretariat and the next year was made deputy director of the General Legal Division. From 1953 to 1966, Schachter directed the legal division, and while in this post helped establish many of the laws that still guide the United Nations' international activities today. This work was followed, from 1966 to 1975, by his assignment as deputy executive director and director of studies of the Institute for Training and Research, a UN facility that prepares representatives from all over the world to work effectively at the UN. Schachter left the UN in 1975 to accept a position as professor of law at Columbia University. He became Hamilton Fish professor of law there in 1980, retiring in 1985. A former president of the American Society of International Law, Schachter also published several influential works on international affairs, including The Role of the Institute of International Law and Its Methods of Work: Today and Tomorrow (1973), Sharing the World's Resources (1976), and International Law in Theory and Practice (1991).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, December 27, 2003, p. B24.

New York Times, December 17, 2003, p. C15.