Shabtai Rosenne

Shabtai Rosenne was born in 1917 in London

Shabtai Rosenne was born in London in 1917 as Sefton Wilfred David Rowson, the son of Harry Rowson. He finished his law degree at the University of London in 1938. In 1940 he married Esther Schultz, and they had two sons, Jonathan and Daniel.

From 1940 to 1946 he served in the Royal Air Force. He then lectured on international and naval law at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich and worked in the Political Department of the Jewish Agency in London and Jerusalem.

In 1948 he became Legal Adviser to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, a post he held until 1967. He took part in the 1949 armistice talks and earned a PhD from the Hebrew University in 1959. He later served at the UN in New York and Geneva and became Ambassador-at-Large in 1974.

He led Israel's delegation to the Third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea from 1973 to 1982. After leaving public service he was a professor at Bar-Ilan University and taught at Cambridge, Amsterdam and other universities. He also advised several governments before international courts.

In 2010 he was appointed to the Turkel Commission on the Gaza flotilla raid. He died in Jerusalem on 21 September 2010 and was buried at Har HaMenuchot.