Rosalyn Cohen Higgins, Lady Higgins, (born 2 June 1937) is a British judge who was a judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) from 1995 to 2009. She was the first female judge elected to the ICJ. Higgins was elected to a three-year term as its president in 2006.

Life Born to a Jewish family in 1937 as Rosalyn Cohen, she married the politician Terence Higgins in 1961.Telegraph.co.uk 6 April 2006 "Was it any more difficult for her to be so critical in the Israel case because she is Jewish? 'I don't think so,' she says, stressing that she judged the case as an international lawyer and not because of her background. 'I also think that the fact you happen to be Jewish doesn't mean you think that everything the State of Israel does is right.'"

When the Foreign Office put her name forward for election to the court, there were fears that some countries in the UN would not vote for a Jewish woman. She dismisses such concerns. "I don't think I have ever been perceived as Rosalyn Higgins, the Jewish international lawyer – and I hope not Rosalyn Higgins, the woman international lawyer." Her husband was created a life peer in 1997; consequently, she became Baroness Higgins or Lady Higgins.

Education and career Higgins studied at Girton College, Cambridge, receiving her BA degree in 1959 and an LLB degree in 1962. She was a Harkness Fellow between 1959 and 1961. She later proceeded to a MA degree. She continued her studies at Yale Law School, earning a JSD degree in 1962.Award of Merit - Yale alumni website

Following her education, Higgins was a practising barrister, and became a Queen's Counsel (QC; since 2022, KC) in 1986, and is a bencher of the Inner Temple. She served on the UN Human Rights Committee for 14 years. Her role as member of the leading body for supervising implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights earned her respect for her diligence and competence. She resigned from the Human Rights Committee when she was elected to the International Court of Justice on 12 July 1995, re-elected on 6 February 2000, and ended her second term on 6 February 2009.

Her professional appointments include: Specialist in International Law, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1963–1974 Visiting Fellow, London School of Economics, 1974–1978 Professor of International Law, University of Kent at Canterbury, 1978–1981 Professor of International Law, University of London (London School of Economics), 1981–1995 Professor of International Law and Human rights, Leiden University, 2009–2010Hoogleraren: Dame Rosalyn Higgins - website of Leiden University Vice-president, British Institute of International and Comparative Law Member of the UN Human Rights Committee.

Higgins is the author of several influential works on international law, including Problems and Process: International Law and How We Use It (1994). Despite delivering many balanced judgements in different cases, Higgins's dissenting opinion in the ICJ's advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat or the Use of Nuclear Weapons has been widely criticised by some legal scholars, on the grounds that it provides sovereign states with an unjustifiable amount of latitude in resort to the use of nuclear weapons in times of armed conflict.A. Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and Making of International Law, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 293

In October 2009, she was appointed adviser on International Law, to the British government's inquiry into the Iraq war, headed by Sir John Chilcot.IraqInquiry.org.uk

Honours and awards Higgins is a member of the Institut de droit international. In 1995, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) "for services to international law", and in the 2019 New Year Honours promoted to Dame Grand Cross of the same Order (GBE) "for services to International Law and Justice". In 1988, she was appointed a Knight of the French Order of Academic Palms. Furthermore, in 2007 she was awarded the Balzan Prize for International Law since 1945.

Her competence has been recognised by many academic institutions, having received at least thirteen honorary doctorates, as well as the Yale Law School Award of Merit and also the Manley-O.-Hudson medal.

References

External links

ICJ Biography of H.E. President Rosalyn Higgins Who's Who in Public International Law 2007 Shabtai Rosenne Memorial Lecture – "Shabtai Rosenne and the International Court of Justice" by Dame Rosalyn Higgins DBE QC, London, 19 November 2012 (retrieved 2013-03-26) "What International Courts (and Judges) May and May Not Do", a lecture by Dame Rosalyn Higgins in the Lecture Series of the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law (retrieved 2013-03-26) Belgium/Netherlands Iron Rhine Award and XXVII UNRIAA 35 and Award Series Professor Edith Brown Weiss and Charles Brower and ICJ Presidents and H.E. Stephen M. Schwebel at the 104th ASIL Annual Dinner of 26 March 2010 in Ritz Carlton in Washington, D.C., and in ICJ Presidents H.E. Rosalyn Higgins and H.E. Stephen M. Schwebel at The Function of International Law Conference in Cambridge on 11-12 July 2008 and 25th Lauterpacht Centre's Anniversary 6th IDI Commission on The Position of International Judge of the Institute of International Law and IDI Members Manley O. Hudson Awards and 26 January 2009 ICJ Presidents H.E. Rosalyn Higgins and H.E. Stephen M. Schwebel at the ILSA-ASIL Gala Dinner Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Philip Jessup Moot Court Competition on 27 March 2009 and Jessup's 50th Anniversary Honorary Committee and and 50th Jessup Programme and Prize for "Best Jessup Oralist" Launched in Honour of Former ICJ President Stephen M. Schwebel at the 103rd ASIL Annual Meeting on International Law as Law, Fairmont Hotel in Washington, D.C., 25–28 March 2009 US Legal Adviser Harold Hongju Koh's Membership, along with i.a. H.E. Former ICJ President Stephen M. Schwebel, in the U.S. National Group of the PCA which on 18 June 2010 nominated U.S. Principal Deputy Legal Adviser Joan E. Donoghue to be the second – after ICJ President Rosalyn Higgins – woman Judge in the International Court of Justice's history and US Foreign Secretary Hillary Clinton's Congratulations