Judge Thomas Buergenthal, who said his survival in a Nazi death camp when he was 10 years old had equipped him to become a human rights lawyer and venerable judge on the Worlds Court, died on May 29 at his home in Miami. He was 89.

After the war, he settled in the United States, and was nominated by Costa Rica for a judgeship on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, from 1979 to 1991 and was its president from 1989 to 1994.  He wrote foundational books on international law; was president of the American Bar Association’s Human Rights Committee from 1972 to 1974; dean of Washington College of Law of American University  from 1980 to 1985; held endowed professorships at the University of Texas, SUNY Buffalo and Emory University, where he was also director of the Human Rights Program of the Carter Center.

Judge Buergenthal served on the United Nations Truth Commission on El Salvador in 1992, was a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the Ethics Commission of the International Olympic Committee, and was vice chairman of the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Accounts, which returned funds to Holocaust victims from bank accounts that had been seized by the Nazis.