40 Facts About Richard Falk

Richard Falk was born into an assimilationist New York Jewish family.

Richard Falk obtained a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania in 1952 before completing a Bachelor of Laws degree at Yale Law School.

Richard Falk obtained his Doctorate in Law from Harvard University in 1962.

Richard Falk's early thinking was influenced by readings of Karl Marx, Herbert Marcuse, and C Wright Mills, and he developed an overriding concern with projects to abolish war and aggression as social institutions.

Richard Falk began his teaching career at Ohio State University and Harvard in the late 1950s.

Richard Falk was appointed Albert G Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice in 1965, a position he retains as Emeritus professor.

Richard Falk is a critic of the Westphalian system of nation states, which he argues must be transcended by a more international institution to control the resort to force by nations, as the world moves towards a global ethos in which states renounce their boundary-obsessed territorialism in exchange for a regime of consensually negotiated aims, in which national leaders must be subject to accountability.

Richard Falk's engagement with politics began at Ohio State University, where in the 1960s as a member of the faculty of law he was a witness to racism targeted at black students.

Richard Falk's move to Princeton University, where the teaching of law was linked to politics, international relations and other social sciences allowed Falk to integrate his professional expertise in international law with his ethical and political values.

Richard Falk aimed to combine his academic work with political activism in a role he described as a "citizen-pilgrim".

Richard Falk is a member of the Editorial Boards of The Nation and The Progressive.

Richard Falk has spoken on college campuses and for organizations.

Richard Falk is a former advisory board member of the World Federalist Institute and the American Movement for World Government, as well as a former fellow at the Transnational Institute.

For several years Richard Falk served on the Santa Barbara, California local committee of Human Rights Watch.

Richard Falk said he was asked to resign from HRW because his work for the United Nations was contrary to HRW's policy.

In 2001, Richard Falk served on a United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Inquiry Commission for the Palestinian territories with John Dugard, a South African based in Leiden University in the Netherlands, and Kamal Hussein, former foreign minister of Bangladesh.

Richard Falk replaced South African international law professor John Dugard, who left his post in June 2008 after seven years.

The appointment of Richard Falk was made by a consensual decision by the 47 members of the UN's Human Rights Council.

Richard Falk has disturbingly charged Israel with 'genocidal tendencies,' and accused it of trying to achieve security through 'state terrorism'.

In May 2008, Israel refused to admit Richard Falk to gather information for a report.

In June 2008, Richard Falk proposed to the Human Rights Council for his mandate to investigate violations of international humanitarian law in the Palestinian territories to be extended to include possible Palestinian infringements.

On December 27,2008, Richard Falk issued a statement condemning the December 2008 Israel strikes on Gaza as "war crimes" because he claimed that they included collective punishment, targeting of civilians and a disproportionate military response to Hamas rocket attacks on Israel, which targeted civilians.

In 2011, Richard Falk spoke to the UN Human Rights Council and stated that Israeli policies in Jerusalem amounted to "ethnic cleansing" against the Palestinian population.

Richard Falk urged it to ask the International Court of Justice to investigate Israel for acts of "colonialism, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing inconsistent with international humanitarian law" that are committed during its occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Richard Falk wrote "that the businesses highlighted in this report constitute a small portion of the many companies that engage in profit-making operations in relation to Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory" and that he "conducted research for this report on the basis of the foundational principle that business enterprises must respect international humanitarian law and should respect human rights".

Richard Falk called for the Red Cross or a commission of international law experts to establish a convention to address the specific issues related to situations of prolonged occupation.

In October 1973, Richard Falk defended Karleton Armstrong, who pleaded guilty to bombing the University of Wisconsin Army Mathematics Research Center, which killed a researcher working there and injured another four people.

In early 1979, when Richard Falk was a professor of International Law at Princeton, he visited Iranian Revolution leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini at his home on the last day of Khomeini's exile in France.

Richard Falk said he received hate mail and death threats for some years afterwards because of the headline, not the article itself.

Richard Falk blamed the "pro-Israel group" UN Watch for misrepresenting his comments in the blog entry.

Richard Falk said the Palestinian demonstrations that followed Sharon's "provocative visit to the Al Aqsa Mosque" were initially non-violent.

The response of Israel, which Richard Falk described as "excessive" and which involved "extrajudicial assassination of a range of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza", created a spiral of violence.

At a conference in Cork, Ireland in late March 2017 entitled "International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Exceptionalism and Responsibility", Richard Falk delivered the keynote address.

Richard Falk stated Israel's creation in 1948 was the result of the "most successful terrorist campaign in history".

Richard Falk stated that the initial campaign for a Jewish state was one of "colonialism" which gained "moral justification" from the Holocaust.

Richard Falk said "Liberal democracies felt guilt and it was easy to soothe their consciousness by encouraging and accepting the state of Israel".

Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird criticized Richard Falk by stating that, not for the first time, Richard Falk "spewed more mean-spirited, anti-Semitic rhetoric".

Richard Falk's statements were criticized by numerous publications and advocacy groups, including the New York Daily News, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Jerusalem Post, Sohrab Ahmari of The Wall Street Journal, UN Watch, the Anti-Defamation League, and the American Jewish Committee.

Richard Falk explained that he had thought the small markings on the dog's head represented a military helmet, not a yarmulka.

Richard Falk did not call for Falk's resignation because of his public apologies and the fact he had swiftly removed the image from his website.