A venerable law professor emeritus and law dean emeritus, Mr. Christenson is a prominent figure in the professions of international law, governance, and legal education.
CINCINNATI, OH, August 09, 2017 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to name Gordon A. Christenson a Lifetime Achiever. An accomplished listee, Mr. Christenson celebrates many years' experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
As a venerable law professor emeritus, law dean emeritus, and lifetime elected fellow of the graduate school of the University of Cincinnati, Mr. Christenson is a prominent figure in the professions of international law, governance, and legal education, having given over a half-century of dedicated service [1957-2017]. He arrived to academia from a distinguished career in the U.S. government, and already had taught at six prestigious law schools before being offered his current position at Cincinnati. Mr. Christenson was always curious about the relationship between law and other disciplines in society, resulting in an integrated career with many pioneering milestones to mark the way.
Mr. Christenson was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Gordon Brown and Ruth Arzella Christenson in 1932. From 1951 to 1952, he served with the U.S. Air Force in Japan. In 1954, Mr. Christenson was commissioned an intelligence officer in the Utah Air National Guard. After moving to Washington, D.C., from 1957 to 1967, he was a reserve officer in the Air Force Judge Advocate General's Division of International Affairs at the Pentagon.
He earned a BS in Law from the University of Utah, matriculating with a JD in 1956. His first position in the legal field was law clerk to the late Chief Justice Roger I. McDonough of the Utah Supreme Court. Mr. Christenson also worked as an associate with the firm of Christenson and Callister until moving to Washington, D.C. in 1957 to pursue graduate work in international and comparative law at the George Washington University School of Law, leading to the degree of SJD (Doctor of Juridical Science) in 1961. After finishing his course work, in 1958 while writing his doctoral dissertation on "Individuals before International Tribunals," he was drawn into the U.S. Department of State, where he worked as an attorney on delicate international matters such as the Kashmir dispute, the Israeli-Arab conflict, the Indian-Chinese border dispute, and was legal advisor to the Policy Planning Staff's Persian Gulf Task Force in 1962.
In the '60s, he was recruited to the Department of Commerce, where he was the first person to be appointed Assistant General Counsel for Science and Technology, a position that demonstrated recognition of the need for a civilian scientific presence in public law. For his legal contributions in environmental sciences, industrial technology, the patent system, engineering standards, product safety, policy and planning and drafting major legislative proposals, Mr. Christenson was awarded the 1967 Silver Medal by the Secretary of Commerce. He was a member of the Inter-agency Committee for international policy on weather modification in 1967 and chaired the department's committee on telecommunications policy.
He entered academia full time in 1967 at the University of Oklahoma as associate professor of law as well as executive assistant to the president of the university. He served in administrative and professorial roles in various academic institutions with a focus on jurisprudence, international law, and constitutional law. In 1971 he returned to Washington, D.C. as dean of the Washington College of Law at American University. Taking leave after six years, he was invited to fill the prestigious post of Charles H. Stockton professor of international law at the U.S. Naval War College for two years, then in 1979, accepted the position of dean and Nippert professor of law at the University of Cincinnati. In 1985 he stepped down from the deanship and after a year's sabbatical at Yale Law School, returned to his teaching position of University Professor of Law until retiring from full time teaching in 1998, with emeritus status.
Mr. Christenson was professorial lecturer in international affairs at The George Washington University (1961-67), visiting scholar at Harvard Law School (1977-79), Yale Law School (1985-86), the University of Maine Law School (1996-97), and visiting professor in summer programs in Canada and Utah. He served on the faculty of the Federal Judicial Center in Washington. Furthermore, he held the Wallace S. Fujiyama distinguished visiting professorship of law at the University of Hawaii Law School in 1997-98. He was an associate in the Center for Policy Alternatives at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as trustee and vice president of Procedural Aspects of International Law Institute in New York. Currently, he is a trustee of the Glenn Weaver Foundation, which gives grants for "neurolaw" research and education at selected law schools such as the Glenn Weaver Institute for Law and Psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati.
He is a regular contributor to legal journals and chapters in books and other published studies, including "The Future of the University" (University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), articles and reviews in "The American Journal of International Law" and "The Human Rights Quarterly" (John Hopkins Press), "Attributing Acts of Omission to the State" (Michigan Journal of International Law, 1991), "Studying Law as the Possibility of Principled Action" (Denver Law Review, 1974), "Jus Cogens: Guarding Interests Fundamental to International Society" (Virginia Journal of International Law, 1988), "Federal Courts and World Civil Society" (Journal of Transactional Law and Policy, 1997), and "Liberty of the Exercise of Religion in the Peace of Westphalia" (Transactional Law & Contemporary Problems, 2013).
Mr. Christenson belongs to the American Society of International Law, the Order of Coif, the Literary Club of Cincinnati, the Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C., Phi Delta Phi, and Kappa Sigma. He was selected for inclusion in numerous volumes of Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Law, Who's Who in the Midwest, Who's Who in the World, and the 2004 to 2005 volume of Who's Who in American Education.
The highlight of his career, he says, was teaching students in jurisprudence, constitutional law and international law and topping it off with his last jurisprudence seminar, "Law, Science, and Religion" with his collection of extensive readings and materials on the Western Legal Tradition (2005-2008). He is presently compiling his selected unpublished papers, writings, essays, poetry, and biographical material for publication. He is also collecting for publication the writings and contributions of his late wife of 37 years, Fabienne Christenson, Founder and President of "Possets Perfume, LLC" an independent global e-commerce company.
About Marquis Who's Who :
Since 1899, when A. N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who's Who in America , Marquis Who's Who has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Today, Who's Who in America remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world. Marquis publications may be visited at the official Marquis Who's Who website at www.marquiswhoswho.com.
# # #