James Fawcett

Sir James Edmund Sandford Fawcett (16 April 1913 – 24 June 1991) was a British barrister and legal scholar. He served as a member of the European Commission for Human Rights from 1962 to 1984, and held the position of president of the commission from 1972 to 1981. He was appointed Knight Bachelor in 1984.

Born in Wallingford, then part of Berkshire, Fawcett was the son of Joseph Fawcett, a clergyman in the Church of England from a family of Yorkshire gentry, and Edith (née Scattergood). His early education took place at the Dragon School in Oxford, followed by Rugby School. He studied classics at New College, Oxford, where he graduated with first-class honours. He was awarded a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford, and served as a fellow there from 1961 to 1969. Fawcett received the Eldon Law Scholarship and was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1938.

In his professional career, Fawcett initially practiced as a barrister on the North-eastern Circuit. During the Second World War, he was commissioned into the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in 1940, serving as the torpedo officer of a destroyer. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 1942 for sinking an Italian destroyer.

Following the war, Fawcett became a legal adviser at the Foreign Office. He was a member of the United Kingdom’s delegation to the United Nations in New York from 1948 to 1950 and also worked at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. During this period, he contributed to the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He returned to private legal practice in 1950 at chambers led by John Galway Foster at 2 Hare Court and appeared multiple times for the UK at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Fawcett served as general counsel for the International Monetary Fund from 1955 to 1960. He was a member of the European Commission of Human Rights from 1962 to 1984 and served as its president from 1972 to 1982. Additionally, he was director of studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) from 1969 to 1973 and held a position as professor of international law at King’s College London from 1976 to 1980.

He authored several scholarly works, including "International Law and the Uses of Outer Space" (1968), "The Law of Nations: An Introduction to International Law" (1968), and "The Application of the European Convention on Human Rights," an article-by-article commentary published in 1969. He was inducted into the Institut de Droit International in 1973.

In recognition of his achievements, he was knighted in 1984, and became a Queen’s Counsel (silk) in 1985.

Fawcett married Frances Beatrice Lowe in St Pancras in 1937. She was the daughter of Elias Avery Lowe and Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter. The couple met at the Dragon School, where both were pupils. They had one son, Edmund Fawcett, a journalist and author, and four daughters, including Charlotte Johnson Wahl, an artist and mother of Boris Johnson, the former British Prime Minister, as well as journalist Rachel Johnson, former government minister Jo Johnson, and entrepreneur Leo Johnson.

His interests included astronomy and playing the piano. Sir James Fawcett died at Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford after suffering a stroke. He was survived by his wife and five children.