Professor Yozo Yokota (1940-2019)

IAFOR members were saddened to learn of the passing of Professor Yozo Yokota on June 12, 2019. Professor Yokota was an international champion of human rights, a legal giant in Japan, and a friend to many throughout the IAFOR network.

Yokota served as the UN’s Special Rapporteur to Myanmar investigating the human rights’ situation there in the 1990s. During his remarkable career, he was also elected to the International Commission of Jurists, sat on the UN Sub-commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, and served as Legal Counsel of the World Bank, just to name a few of his international roles. As an academic, Professor Yokota wrote numerous books and articles, and taught at universities around the world, including International Christian University (Tokyo), the University of Adelaide, in Australia, the University of Michigan Law School and Columbia Law School, in the US, and finally the University of Tokyo and Chuo University, in Japan.

People around the IAFOR network had the pleasure of working with Professor Yokota as he served on the International Academic Advisory Board, and spoke at several IAFOR conferences over the years. He was a valuable supporter from IAFOR’s earliest days, a friend to many, and a hero to many more. He will be greatly missed, but we have every confidence that the legacy of human security, justice, and scholarship he leaves behind will endure for many years into the future.

Posted by IAFOR