A terraced house in Cricklewood, north London, has been officially marked as the home of a key figure in the creation of modern international law. English Heritage this week unveiled a blue plaque in memory of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht, who lived at 103 Walm Lane for 10 years from 1923.

Sir Hersch Lauterpacht

The blue plaque in memory of Lauterpacht, who lived at 103 Walm Lane

Lauterpacht played a key prosecutorial role at the Nuremberg trials. He moved to London in 1923 from what is now Ukraine, originally to study at the London School of Economics. He was naturalised as a British citizen in 1931. Lauterpacht’s son Eli, himself a human rights lawyer, was born in the house, which Lauterpacht’s parents visited in 1935. Lauterpacht pleaded with them to stay, but they returned home and died in the Holocaust.

Philippe Sands KC said: ‘Hersch was likely the most influential international lawyer of the 20th century, a scholar, a counsel, a judge, a father of the modern system of human rights, and the individual who proposed the introduction of the notion of “crimes against humanity” into international law.

‘The lawyer who put the wellbeing of the individual at the heart of international law, he did not seek attention, and would surely be surprised, as a Lvivian, to be recognised in this wonderful way by English Heritage.’

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