Francis A. Boyle with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Photo from iHRAAM – International Human Rights Association of American Minorities, ihraam.org
Francis Anthony Boyle passed away suddenly on January 30, 2025 at age 74. Francis A. Boyle was always in the right kind of trouble.
Boyle was an international and human rights lawyer and professor in Urbana. He spent his life pursuing the prosecution of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide. He was known throughout the world for his successful arguments in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the International Criminal Court, and the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal.
He was the first lawyer to win anything under the Genocide Convention of 1948 at the ICJ—the highest legal authority in the United Nations system. In 1993, he single-handedly won two World Court orders for the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina against Yugoslavia, directing the Serb-dominated rump Yugoslav Army to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide. Until then, it was widely denied that genocide was taking place.
He served as judge in two tribunals, in 1984–88 and 1993. He was involved in the legal struggle against apartheid in South Africa. He objected to nuclear weapons, biological warfare, and the death penalty. He defended nonviolent, civil disobedience cases.
He was instrumental in drafting the legislation that became the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989—which passed unanimously in both houses of Congress!
Boyle served as legal adviser to Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization on the Palestinian Declaration of Independence of 1988. From 1991–93, he served as legal advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace negotiations, and he drafted the Palestinian counteroffer that led to the Oslo Agreement—bringing the first intifada to an end in 1993.
Boyle started the divestment/disinvestment campaign against Israel in 2000. He joined with Palestinian civil society in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in 2005. Some call Boyle the “D” in BDS. Divestment campaigns urge banks, local councils, churches, pension funds, and universities to withdraw investments from the state of Israel and all Israeli and international companies that sustain Israel’s apartheid system. BDS is modeled after the anti-apartheid movement. Israel sees the BDS campaign as an existential threat to the Jewish state, while Palestinians regard it as their last nonviolent resort.
Boyle’s longtime friend John Dugard is the current lead counsel to South Africa in its lawsuit at the ICJ charging Israel with conducting genocide in Gaza. Boyle was part of a coalition working to get the 153 members of the Genocide Convention to file declarations of intervention in support and solidarity.
In a 2024 interview with Democracy Now!, Boyle said that Israel has a history of listening to the US’s orders to stop its assault on the occupied Palestinian territories. “We here in the United States of America have the power to stop this.”
Local activists recognize Boyle for his work to make Urbana a sanctuary city. He did all the legal work for the original 1986 sanctuary resolution. And in 2016, he helped write a new measure. The revised statute confirms that police generally will not help the federal government investigate anyone’s immigration status unless there is a court order. An equally important component is that Urbana will provide city services to all residents, irrespective of immigration status. In 2016, the Urbana City Council reaffirmed the city’s sanctuary status in a 5-1 vote.
Boyle testifying at the Urbana City Council meeting on December 19, 2016. Screen shot from the public video of the meeting
He represented oppressed peoples in the US and internationally. These included African Americans, the Blackfoot indigenous peoples in Canada, Borikén Taino (indigenous Puerto Ricans), Bosnians, Gullah/Geechees of the coastal southeast US, the Irish, Kanaka Maoli (indigenous Hawaiians), the Lakota Nation, Alaska Natives, the Palestinians, and the Tamils of Sri Lanka.
Francis Boyle also served organizations that work for peace, including Amnesty International and the American Friends Service Committee.
He was a critic of every US presidency.
- In 1984, he advised peace NGOs and lawyers on the legal issues involving Ronald Reagan’s war against Nicaragua and support for repression and human rights violations in El Salvador and Guatemala.
- He endorsed the impeachment of Bill Clinton for launching military attacks against Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq in violation of the War Powers Act and the US Constitution.
- In 2008–09, he unsuccessfully argued that the Obama administration should, on legal grounds, force Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
- In 2011, he was one of two prosecutors in the four-day Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal in Malaysia. This court reached a unanimous verdict, finding George W. Bush and former UK prime minister Tony Blair guilty of crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and genocide as a result of their roles in the Iraq War.
- In 2018, he criticized Trump’s missile strikes on Syria.
- In 2024, he predicted that the Biden administration would stand condemned for complicity in genocide by the International Court of Justice, stating “clearly we know that the Biden administration has been aiding and abetting Israeli genocide against the Palestinians here for quite some time.”
Let us get to the controversial stuff so that we don’t avoid it. Boyle believed that the US’s biological weapons research directly led to China having a biowarfare lab with untrained staff who were not knowledgeable enough to prevent dangerous things from happening, including the possible release of a coronavirus that Boyle believed became the COVID-19 pandemic. Some may think that Boyle became a victim of a conspiracy theory, but others believe he knew enough about the US and biological warfare to legitimate his position. Boyle was also concerned that, even while people in the US could opt out of the untested COVID vaccines, the US was forcing people in other countries to take them.
Boyle was born in Chicago in 1950. He received a BA degree in political science from the University of Chicago in 1971, graduated magna cum laude with his juris doctor (JD) degree from Harvard Law School in 1976, and earned a PhD in political science from Harvard university in 1983.
Boyle was a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the College of Law for 47 years, from 1978 until he passed away in 2025. However, as Richard Falk—former UN special rapporteur on Palestine—pointed out, “people like Boyle pay a price for their civic integrity and engagement, and there is little doubt in my mind, that Francis was informally blacklisted” for being a radical dissenter. Falk called Boyle a great progressive international law scholar and practitioner.
As a professor, a teacher, many students loved him and thought of his classes as their favorites. He had other appointments at the University of Illinois as well.
Boyle published many books and articles on a multitude of topics, including nonviolent civil disobedience, African Americans’ right to self-determination, protesting power, war resistance, the right to refuse military orders, human rights, crimes against humanity, biochemical warfare, nuclear deterrence, extraordinary rendition, the death penalty, the right of citizens to resist state crimes, and many others. Several of his books were translated into other languages, including Arabic, Bosnian, French, German, Korean, Russian, and Spanish.
To quote one of Boyle’s colleagues, “Francis was a remarkable man who persevered all his life in the cause of human rights and justice.” We need him today, more than ever.
Karen Medina grew up in Champaign, served in the Peace Corps, has degrees in animal science and in library and information science, and is a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
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