Abram Chayes

Abram Chayes (July 18, 1922 – April 16, 2000) was an American scholar of international law closely associated with the administration of John F. Kennedy. He is best known for his “legal process” approach to international law, which attempted to provide a new, less formalistic way of understanding international law and how it might further develop. By focusing on how international legal rules are actually used by foreign policy decision-makers, Chayes sought to study international law, not within a vacuum of legal rules and procedures, but in a dynamic political environment.

Abram Chayes's full name was Abram Joseph Chayes, but he did not use his middle name. He was born in Chicago. Both his parents were lawyers.

He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1943 and served in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1945 as a field artillery officer in France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Japan, leaving the service with the rank of captain. He received the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

Chayes graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School in 1949, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review.

After law school, Chayes was Legal Advisor to Governor Chester Bowles of Connecticut from 1949 to 1951, and then served in Washington, D.C., as Associate General Counsel of the President's Materials Policy Commission in 1951. He clerked for Justice Felix Frankfurter of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1951 to 1952, and practiced law privately with Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., from 1952 to 1955.

In 1955 he joined the faculty at Harvard Law School as an associate professor and began teaching courses in constitutional law and international law.

In the late 1950s, Chayes was among the original members of a group of Harvard faculty members who worked on the presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy. He led the team that drafted the 1960 Democratic Convention platform, and was one of Kennedy's principal issues advisers during the campaign.

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