Henry Steiner

Henry J. Steiner is an Emeritus Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard University. His research interests concern issues of human rights and international law. He is the founder of the Human Rights Program (HRP) at Harvard Law School, a nearly thirty-year-old program dedicated to incorporating students, faculty, and human rights organizations into the study of international human rights through applied research, regular speaker series, as well as conferences and reports. Professor Steiner is the author of several books and reports including, most recently, International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals (with Ryan Goodman and Philip Alston; Oxford University Press, 2007), an interdisciplinary course book designed to provide an overview of issues related to international law and the human rights movement and to incorporate, in the most recent edition, a substantive focus on contemporary issues associated with terrorism, national security, and the influence of international actors on state behavior; two case books, Transnational Legal Problems (with Detlev Vagts and Harold Hongju Koh; Foundation Press, 1994) and Tort and Accident Law (with Page R. Keeton and L. Sargentich); a report entitled Diverse Partners: Non-Governmental Organizations in the Human Rights Movement (Human Rights Program, 1991), which was developed from a retreat coordinated by the HRP and Human Rights Internet and concerns the potential contributions and liabilities associated with non-governmental organizational alliance with human rights movements; and Moral Argument and Social Vision in the Courts (University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), in which he examines, through a discussion of accident law, the structure of existing common law and potentials for legal innovation. He received his B.A. in Modern European History and Literature, M.A. in International Affairs, and LL.B. all from Harvard University.