* Originally published as Ein, Gliickskind (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, 2007)Google Scholar. The edition reviewed here is the first American edition. The English version has been published in London by Profile Books; translations in more than half a dozen languages have also been published—for example, in Spanish as Un niño afortunado (Barcelona: Plataforma Editorial, 2008).Google Scholar

1 The photo is reprinted on page 13 of the American edition and page 29 of the German edition. The German edition features a more solemn cover photo (found on page 130 of the American edition and page 144 of Ein Glückskind), showing Tom Buergenthal just before his eleventh birthday in a miniature uniform of the Polish Army, tailor-made for him soon after his liberation from Sachsenhausen in April of 1945. Page references hereafter are to the American edition.

2 Herefers to his 1956 article in Remembering the Auschwitz Death March , 18 Hum. Rts. Q. 874, 874 (1996)Google Scholar (remarks at U.S. Holocaust Museum commemoration).

3 International Law and the Holocaust , in Holocaust Restitution: Perspectives on the Litigation and its Legacy 17, 17 (Michael, J. Bazyler & Roger, P. Alford eds., 2006).Google Scholar

4 Remembering the Auschwitz Death March, supra note 2, at 875.

5 Odd Nansen, Fra Dag Til Dag (1947), published in abridged versions in the United States (From Day to Day) and in Great Britain (Day After Day) in 1949 and in Germany (Von Tag zu Tag); Odd Nansen, Tommy: en Sannferdig fortelling Fortalt Av Odd Nansen (1970). Nansen was the son of Norwegian polar explorer and statesman Fridtjof Nansen. Nansen’s account in “Tommy” has not been published in English, but some of Buergenthal’s students commissioned a private translation and presented it to him at graduation in 1985 (see pp. 176-79, 188- 90). See also Jo M., Pasqualucci Thomas Buergenthal: Holocaust Survivor to Human Rights Advocate , 18 Hum. Rts. Q. 877, 880 nn. 8, 10 (1996)Google Scholar (on the Nansen diaries and “Tommy”).

6 Pasqualucci, supra note 5; see also Daniel, Terris Cesare, P. R. Romano & Leigh, Swigart The International Judge: an Introduction to the Men and Women Who Decide The World’s Cases 92–101 (2007)Google Scholar (profile of Buergenthal).

7 Only after the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia did Buergenthal obtain a copy of his birth certificate confirming these facts.

8 For appraisal of his service on the Inter-American Court, see Pasqualucci’s Thomas Buergenthal, supra note 5, at 884-90 and references therein, including The Modern World of Human Rights: Essays in Honour of Thomas Buergenthal (A. A. Cançado Trindade ed., 1996).

9 See Faurisson v. France, Communication No. 550/ 1993, UN Doc. CCPR/C/58/D/550/1993 (Nov. 8, 1996), 2 Report of the Human Rights Committee, Annex VI, at 84, 84 n.*, 97, UN GAOR, 52d Sess., Supp. No. 40, UN Doc. A/52/40 (1999) (noting that Buergenthal did not participate, and appending his statement).

10 See Lori Fisler, Damrosch The Election of Thomas Buergenthal to the International Court of Justice , 94 Ajil 579 (2000).Google Scholar

11 Shortly before this review went to press, Buergenthal made known his intention to resign from the Court effective September 6, 2010. By that date he will have served on the Court for a period often and a half years.

12 Since ICJ practice is that the authors of the Court’s majority judgments are not identified, the judicial philosophies of particular judges have to be inferred from the sources indicated in the text.

13 LaGrand (FRG v. U.S.), 2001 ICJ Rep. 466, 514-16 (June 27); id. at 548 (diss. op. Buergenthal, J.) (agreeing with the Court on all points except for the admissibility of one of Germany’s submissions, on the ground that Germany’s late filing of its provisional measures request had resulted in unfairness to the United States); Avena (Mex. v. U.S.), 2004 ICJ Rep. 12, 70-73 (Mar. 31, 2004). In the related proceeding known as Request for Interpretation of the Avena Judgment (inx’l Ct. Justice Jan. 19, 2009), he joined the Court in concluding that the United States had breached its obligations by executing an inmate covered by Avena, contrary to a provisional measures order; he had dissented from that order on the ground that Mexico had not established prima facie jurisdiction over a dispute under Article 60 of the ICJ Statute. Request for Interpretation of the Judgment of 31 March 2004 in the Case Concerning Avena and Other Mexican Nationals (Mexico v. United States of America) (Mex. v. U.S.), Provisional Measures, Diss. Op. Buergenthal, J. (Int’l Ct. Justice July 16, 2008).

14 Legality of Use of Force (Serb. & Mont. v. Belg.), Preliminary Objections, 2004 ICJ Rep. 279, 330, para. 12 (Dec. 15.) (joint decl. Ranjeva, V.-P.; Guillaume, Higgins, Kooijmans, Al Khasawneh, Buergenthal, & Elaraby, JJ.).

15 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosn. & Herz. v. Serb. & Mont.) (Int’l Ct. Justice Feb. 26, 2007). In the practice of the ICJ (and other courts), judges “have often recused themselves without giving public reasons.” Terris et al., supra note 6, at 196.

16 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croat, v. Serb.), Preliminary Objections, paras. 93-117, 146 (Int’l Ct. Justice Nov. 18, 2008).

17 Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000 (Dem. Rep. Congov. Belg.), 2002ICJ REP. 3, 63, para. 51 (Feb. 14) (joint sep. op. Higgins, Kooijmans, & Buergenthal, JJ.).

18 Id., para. 75.

19 2004 ICJ Rep. 136, 240 (July 9) (decl. Buergenthal, J.).

20 Composition of the Court, 2004 ICJ Rep. 3, 7 (Jan. 30) (diss. op. Buergenthal, J.).

21 2004 ICJ Rep. at 201-02. While the Court unanimously found that it had jurisdiction to give the requested advisory opinion (para. 163(1)), Buergenthal was the sole dissenter from its decision to comply with the request (para. 163(2)); he thought the Court should have exercised discretion not to answer the question because it lacked the factual basis for a legally justifiable answer. On the substantive conclusions of the opinion (para. 163(3)), Buergenthal dissented alone on points A, B, C, and E, and was joined by Judge Kooijmans on point D.

22 Id. at 240 (decl. Buergenthal, J.).

23 See Cynthia, Ozick Who Owns Anne Frank? New Yorker, Oct. 6, 1997, at 76Google Scholar, 81 (locating quote in context of diarist’s “vision of darkness”).

24 In Buergenthal’s words: “But what else could we do but hope? That, after all, is human nature” (p. 37).