Myres McDougal

1985 Read Medal Recipient

B.A.(Miss.), M.A.(Miss.), LL.B.(Miss.), B.C.L.(Oxford)

A renowned authority on international law, Professor McDougal founded, along with political scientist Harold Lasswell, the New Haven School of Jurisprudence, a policy-science approach to the study of law that conceives of law not as a body of rules, but as a process of decision. In his view, the challenge was to develop and apply an approach to the study and practice of law as that law could contribute to the achievement of a public order respectful of human dignity. He earned degrees at the University of Mississippi and Yale and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Professor McDougal, was Sterling Professor Emertius of Law, and was a respected and popular teacher at Yale Law School for five decades and then at the New York Law School. He produced, with his students, six major treatises on international issues, including the law of the sea, the law of outer space, the law of war and the law of human rights. Professor McDougal and Mr. Lasswell published “Legal Education and Public Policy, a fundamental and path-breaking work in its field (1943). He also served as President of the American Society of International Law (1958) and the Association of American Law Schools (1966).