Theodor Meron – a great life

JVL Introduction

At the age of 92 Theodor Meron’s memoir A Thousand Miracles: From Surviving the Holocaust to Judging Genocide, was published earlier this year. A review by Mike Phipps in Labour Hub, is reposted below.

It is an extraordinary story of a refugee, a legal scholar, a principled adviser to governments, and ultimately a ground-breaking international judge of unusual integrity.

A 9-year old child when the Nazis invaded Poland, Meron spent the next six years surviving atrocious harassment and persecution in which most of his family were murdered.

In 1946 he made his way to Palestine aged 15 was mobilised in 1948 fighting what he believed to be a just war.

Afterwards he studied law in Israel and the UK before joining the Israeli foreign service. In the aftermath of the Six-Day war, he wrote legal opinions for the government. His conclusions that Palestinian house demolitions and deportations violated international law, as did Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank, were not welcomed.

He left Israel for the US and a distinguished legal career. He contributed to the establishment of the International Criminal Court and served on its tribunals concerning war crimes in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

In 2024 Meron was part of an ICC  panel that called for Israeli leaders to be prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza – leading to President Trump’s imposition of sanctions of the ICC itself.

Few career lawyers and scholars survive the incredible pressures they are under to bend to political realities. Theodor Meron did so, and with great distinction.

RK

This article was originally published by Labour Hub on Mon 1 Jun 2026. Read the original here.