On 21 November 2023, the Nuremberg Academy held an event in honour and memory of Holocaust survivor and law professor Judge Thomas Buergenthal, who passed away in May 2023. In Courtroom 600 of the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, speakers and guests paid tribute to the life and work of Judge Buergenthal, who was the first President of the Advisory Council and, from 2016 to the present, its Honorary President. Thomas Buergenthal's grandchildren, Laura and Tomás de las Casas, had come to Nuremberg especially for the event on behalf of the Buergenthal family and shared personal memories of their grandfather.
In their moving speeches, Academy Director Professor Dr Christoph Safferling, the President of the Higher Regional Court of Nuremberg, Dr Thomas Dickert, and Thomas Buergenthal's former colleague and family friend, Anne Rübesame, paid tribute to this great personality of international law and related their encounters with him.
The documentary film "Peace Through Justice – The Legacy of Thomas Buergenthal", produced by competent filmproduktion on behalf of the Nuremberg Academy, depicted Judge Buergenthal’s life and his groundbreaking work in the field of international human rights law, his commitment to international justice and to the Nuremberg Academy. The film accompanies Thomas Buergenthal and his family in Nuremberg, Sachsenhausen, in his hometown Göttingen and in Washington D.C., where he taught for many decades.
Following the film screening, Professor Dr Angelika Nußberger, Universität zu Köln, Dr Wiebke Rückert, German Federal Foreign Office, and Professor Dr Stefanie Schmahl, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, discussed Judge Buergenthal's professional merits and his pioneering role in the academic field of international human rights law in a talk moderated by Shelly Kupferberg. (em)
