Joan M. Fitzpatrick

Professor Joan M. Fitzpatrick was a noted scholar and advocate in the area of human rights.

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1975, she practiced with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and then the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, where she began her lifelong commitment to human rights work.

She began her teaching career at the University of Arkansas before joining the faculty at the University of Washington School of Law in 1984, where she taught until her death in 2003.

Professor Fitzpatrick was the author or editor of six books and more than fifty articles. Her books include:

• Human Rights in Crisis: The International System for Protecting Rights During States of Emergency (1994)
• International Human Rights: Law, Policy, and Process (with David Weissbrodt and Frank Newman) (3d ed. 2001)
• Human Rights Protection for Refugees, Asylum-Seekers, and Internally Displaced Persons: A Guide to International Mechanisms and Procedures (2002)

For tributes, see 78 Wash. L. Rev. 973-83 (2003) and 97 Am. J. Int’l L. 656-58 (2003). [Links to Hein Online; UW Restricted.] The Law Library website includes a comprehensive bibliography of her work.

After Professor Fitzpatrick’s death, her family donated many of her books – including hard-to-find reports and documents – to the Law Library. The Law School’s Joan M. Fitzpatrick Endowed Fund will remember Professor Fitzpatrick’s work and legacy by supporting students who work in the areas of human rights, immigration and refugee law.