Sohn was born in
Lemberg, in what was then
Austria-Hungary, later Poland and now Ukraine. He earned his first law degree at
John Casimir University in
Lviv in 1939, leaving for the United States to take up a Harvard University research fellowship two weeks before
Nazi Germany invaded Poland. He was a longtime scholar of
international law and advocate of international institutions. As a protégé of
Manley O. Hudson, he participated in the San Francisco Conference that established the
United Nations, working on the statute of the
International Court of Justice. Sohn earned his
LL.M. and
S.J.D. degrees from
Harvard Law School. He was appointed an assistant professor there in 1951, succeeding Hudson to the
Bemis Chair in 1961. Upon retirement from Harvard, Sohn followed his friend
Dean Rusk to the
University of Georgia School of Law, where he held the Woodruff Chair in International Law until 1991. Sohn served as counselor to the Legal Adviser,
U.S. Department of State in 1970 and 1971. He was the U.S. delegate to the
Law of the Sea Convention from 1974 to 1982. In 1958, Sohn was a co-author, with
Grenville Clark, of
World Peace Through World Law (Harvard University Press), which examined proposals to transform the United Nations into a world government. The book called for complete disarmament and the use of world judicial tribunals to solve international disputes. The plan also proposed a permanent world police force to enforce a prohibition on the
use of force by states. He was nominated for the
Nobel Peace Prize by numerous people from 1959 to 1964. Upon Sohn's death in 2006,
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan issued a statement noting Sohn's reputation as "a voice of reason and source of wisdom," and celebrating his "firm belie[f] in the importance of the United Nations and of the rule of law in settling international disputes." == See also ==