David S. Weissbrodt (October 13, 1944 – November 11, 2021) was an American legal scholar. He was

Regents Professor Distinguished Professor is an academic title given to some top tenured professors in a university, school, or department. Some distinguished professors may have endowed chairs. In the United States Often specific to one institution, titles such ...

Emeritus and Fredrikson & Byron Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Minnesota Law School.

Biography

Weissbrodt was born into a family of lawyers and scholars in Washington, D.C. on October 13, 1944. His father was Israel S. "Lefty" Weissbrodt, a

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...

-trained lawyer who specialized in Indian tribal claims against the U.S. government. His mother was Selma J. Mushkin, a Georgetown University economist and authority on health programs and public management. His uncle was Abe William Weissbrodt, a star basketball player at

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

who later pursued a legal career and prosecuted German companies for their ties to

Nazi war crimes The governments of the German Empire and Nazi Germany (under Adolf Hitler) ordered, organized and condoned a substantial number of war crimes, first in the Herero and Namaqua genocide and then in the World War I, First and World War II, Second Wo ...

during World War II. His cousin, Aurthur Weissbrodt, was a judge on the United States bankruptcy court for the Northern District of California. He earned his A.B. from Columbia University and attended the London School of Economics. He received his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where was Notes & Comments Editor of the '' California Law Review''. He then interned at the

International Commission of Jurists The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) is an international human rights non-governmental organization. It is a standing group of 60 eminent jurists—including senior judges, attorneys and academics—who work to develop national and inte ...

in Geneva, Switzerland, clerked for judge

Mathew O. Tobriner Mathew Oscar Tobriner (April 2, 1904 – April 7, 1982) was an American lawyer and law professor who served as an associate justice of the California Supreme Court from 1962 to 1982. Early life and education A native of San Francisco, Tobriner ...

of the

Supreme Court of California The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacra ...

and practiced law at

Covington & Burling Covington & Burling LLP is an American multinational law firm. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the firm advises clients on transactional, litigation, regulatory, and public policy matters. In 2021, Vault.com ranked Covington & Burling as th ...

. He joined the law faculty of the University of Minnesota in 1975. Weissbrodt launched the Human Rights Center at the University of Minnesota and built the largest human rights library in the world in 1988. He was named Regents Professor in 2005, the highest honor awarded to a faculty member. From 1996 to 2003, Weissbrodt was a member of the United Nations

Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights The Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (before 1999, known as the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities) was a think tank of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. It was wou ...

and chaired it from 2001 to 2002, becoming the first U.S. citizen to head a U.N. human rights body since Eleanor Roosevelt. He served as the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the rights of non-citizens from 2000 to 2003. He was a director of the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery and was elected its chairman in 2008. Wessbrodt was also a founder of the

Center for Victims of Torture The Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) is an international non-profit headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota that provides direct care for those who have been tortured, trains partner organizations in the United States and around the world who can ...

. During the 1980s, he also helped establish guidelines for effectively investigating extrajudicial killings, known today as the Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death. Weissbrodt died at the age of 77 on Nov. 11, 2021.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weissbrodt, David 1944 births 2021 deaths American legal scholars University of Minnesota Law School faculty Columbia College (New York) alumni UC Berkeley School of Law alumni United Nations officials Academics from Washington, D.C. Alumni of the London School of Economics United Nations special rapporteurs