Thomas Buergenthal served as the United States judge on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) from 2000 to 2010. Between 1979 and 1991, he was a judge and president of the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights. He was as judge and president of the Administrative Tribunal of the Inter-American Development Bank (1989-94); vice chairman of the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Accounts in Switzerland. He also was a member of the UN Human Rights Committee; the UN Truth Commission for El Salvador; and the Ethics Commission of the International Olympic Committee.

From 1989 – 2000 and again from 2010 – 2016 Buergenthal was the Lobingier Professor of Comparative Law & Jurisprudence, George Washington University Law School. He served as Dean of the Washington College of Law of the American University from 1980-1985. His other academic posts included: Professor of Law, State University of N.Y. (Buffalo) Law School; Fulbright & Jaworski Professor, University of Texas Law School; I.T. Cohen Professor, Emory University Law School. While at Emory, he also served as the Director of the Human Rights Program of the Carter Center. 

Buergenthal earned the following academic degrees: B.A. (1957), Bethany College, West Virginia; J.D. (1960), New York University Law School (Root-Tilden Scholar); LL.M. (1961) and S.J.D (1968), Harvard Law School.

He is the recipient of the following honorary degrees: Bethany College, 1981; University of Heidelberg, 1986; Free University of Brussels (V.U.B), 1994; State University of New York (Buffalo), 2000; American University (Washington, D.C.), 2002; University of Minnesota, 2003; George Washington University, 2004; University of Göttingen, 2007; New York University, 2008; St. Edward’s University (Austin, Texas), 2009; Brandeis University (2011); Brooklyn Law School (2011); and the University for Peace (Costa Rica, 2014).

Buergenthal is the author and co-author of more than a dozen books and a large number of essays on international law and human rights subjects. In his memoir, A Lucky Child, Buergenthal describes his experiences as one of the youngest survivors of the Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen concentration camps.He received various prizes and awards, including more recently: 1997 Goler T. Butcher Medal for Excellence in Human Rights, American Society of International Law; 2002 Manley O. Hudson Medal, American Society of International Law; 2008 International Justice Prize, Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation; 2015 Elie Wiesel Award, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; 2015 Olympic Order, International Olympic Committee; 2016 Grand Cross of the Order of Merit, German Federal Republic; 2018 Stockholm Human Rights Award.