Tribute To Professor Jeswald W. Salacuse

KINGSLEY MOGHALU

 

I mourn the death of my friend, teacher, mentor and former colleague, Professor Jeswald W. Salacuse, the Henry Braker Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University . “Jes”, as he was popularly called, was a distinguished scholar, leader and university administrator who played an important role in my life when, as Dean of The Fletcher School in 1990, he selected me as the Joan Gillespie Fellow at the prestigious Fletcher School from 1991-1992, which funded the tuition for my master’s degree program, on my being recommended to him by Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria and also an alumnus of The Fletcher School.

 

Salacuse was an influential scholar in the areas of law and development, international investment law, and negotiation and deal-making. Educated at Harvard Law School, Salacuse taught and worked earlier in his career in the 1960s and 70s, in several developing countries including Nigeria, where he was a Lecturer in Law at Ahmadu Bello University and, with the Nigerian legal luminary Prof. A.B. Kasunmu SAN, co-authored the textbook “Family Law in Nigeria”. He also taught and worked with Ford Foundation in Lebanon, Sudan, & Democratic Republic of Congo (Salacuse was fluent in French).

After I was admitted to The Fletcher School and received a scholarship on Salacuse’s intervention, I met him, even before I arrived in Boston in the fall of 1991, at the Southwestern Legal Foundation’s Academy of American & International Law in Dallas, Texas, where I received executive legal education in the summer of 1991 and Jes taught as faculty.

It was therefore a great honor for me when, on being appointed as a full Professor of Practice in International Business & Public Policy at The Fletcher School in 2015 after completing my tenure as Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria , I found myself Jes’ colleague on The Fletcher School faculty.

His past familiarity with Nigeria and other developing countries was an important connection point with Jeswald Salacuse, who encouraged and supported me at various stages in my life and career. Jes and I enjoyed several warm lunches and dinners in. Boston, both when I was a student at his feet, and when I was a Professor just like him at the same institution later on in my life. May his kind soul rest in peace, and may his family, and The Fletcher School community, find the strength to bear the loss of Jeswald W. Salacuse. He was a great man and a leader.