United Nations Commission on Human Rights Appointment of Jerome J. Shestack as U.S. Representative.

The President today announced that he will appoint Jerome J. Shestack, of Philadelphia, Pa., to be U.S. Representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. He replaces Edward Mezvinsky, resigning. Shestack is an attorney in Philadelphia and president of the International League for Human Rights.

He was born February 11, 1923, in Atlantic City, N.J. He received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1943 and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School in 1949. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1943 to 1946.

From 1949 to 1950, Shestack was an instructor at Northwestern Law School, and from 1950 to 1952, he was an instructor at Louisiana State University Law School. In 1952 he served as deputy city solicitor of Philadelphia.

From 1953 to 1955, Shestack was first deputy city solicitor. In 1953 he was also an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Since 1955 he has been with the firm of Schnader, Harrison, Segal and Lewis; he has been a partner since 1956.

Shestack is president of the International League for Human Rights, a nongovernmental international human rights organization with consultative status at the United Nations and with affiliates in some 35 nations. He is founder and cochairman of the Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights, a public interest law association which deals with international human rights problems. He has chaired a number of international human rights conferences.

Shestack was a founding member of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and has served on the board of directors of the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund. He was a founder of the section of individual rights and responsibilities of the American Bar Association and served as chairman of the section in 1969-70.

In 1973 he became the first chairman of the Commission on Mentally Disabled of the American Bar Association, where he established projects to help provide legal services and promote fights for the mentally disabled. He served on the first steering committee to organize the legal services program of the Office of Economic Opportunity and then became a member of the OEO National Advisory Committee to the Legal Services Program.

Shestack is chairman of the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants and is on the board of directors of the American Jewish Committee.