Arthur Helton

Who was Arthur Helton?

Arthur Helton was a lawyer, refugee advocate, teacher and author. He died in the 2003 Canal Hotel bombing while he was in Baghdad to assess humanitarian conditions in Iraq.

Helton graduated from Columbia College, Columbia University in New York City in 1971 and from New York University School of Law in 1976.

Helton began his work with refugees in 1982, when he joined the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in New York. He created a much-replicated program under which lawyers from some of the most prestigious firms in the United States provided free help to poor refugees in their quest for asylum. The program Helton started now represents more than 1,000 asylum seekers each year, winning more than 90 percent of its cases. During his first year at the Lawyers Committee, Helton secured the release of some 2,000 fugitives from Haiti held in Florida after convincing a federal judge that he would find volunteer lawyers to represent them at formal asylum hearings.

In 1994, Helton founded and then directed the Forced Migration Projects at the Open Society Institute.

From 1999, Helton served as program director of peace and conflict studies and senior fellow for refugee studies and preventive action at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.