Education

Arzt earned a B.A. degree at Brandeis University

Brandeis University

Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...

, a J.D. degree at Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

, and an LL.M. degree at Columbia Law School

Columbia Law School

Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, is one of the oldest and most prestigious law schools in the United States. A member of the Ivy League, Columbia Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Columbia University in New York City. It offers the J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. degrees in...

. From 1988 until her death she was Professor of Law in the Syracuse University College of Law

Syracuse University College of Law

Syracuse University College of Law , founded in 1895, is a Juris Doctor degree-granting law school of Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. It is one of only four law schools in Upstate New York Syracuse University College of Law (SUCOL), founded in 1895, is a Juris Doctor degree-granting law...

, and Dean's Distinguished Research Scholar. She died November 15, 2008 after a long illness.

Career

Before teaching at Syracuse, Arzt practiced public interest law in Boston and was an assistant attorney general for the Commonwealth

Commonwealth (United States)

Four of the constituent states of the United States officially designate themselves Commonwealths: Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia....

 of Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 specializing in civil rights and regulation of charitable solicitation. Artz published numerous articles on human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

 in the Soviet Union and the Middle East. She served as a consultant to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...

, and the U.N. Special Rapporteur

Rapporteur

Rapporteur is used in international and European legal and political contexts to refer to a person appointed by a deliberative body to investigate an issue or a situation....

 on population transfer.

Artz was an activist in the movement to free Soviet Jewry

Movement to Free Soviet Jewry

The Movement to Free Soviet Jewry was an international human rights campaign that advocated for the right of Jews in the Soviet Union to emigrate....

. She founded the Soviet Jewry Legal Advocacy Center, which was an affiliate of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jewry. In that role, she documented the USSR's violation of its own and international law. She also prepared many legal briefs on behalf of Refuseniks and Prisoners of Zion. These legal briefs were given to the Soviets via US Congressmen as well as to the families of the Refuseniks and POZ's, who often could not obtain legal representation.

She served as director of the Center for Global Law and Practice at the Syracuse University College of Law.

Artz founded and directed the Lockerbie Trial Families Project, which informed the families of the 270 victims of the Pan Am Flight 103

Pan Am Flight 103

Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways' third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from London Heathrow Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport...

 bombing over Lockerbie

Lockerbie

Lockerbie is a town in the Dumfries and Galloway region of south-western Scotland. It lies approximately from Glasgow, and from the English border. It had a population of 4,009 at the 2001 census...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, about developments in the Lockerbie criminal trial as the trial took place in a Scottish courtroom in the Netherlands.

Artz also founded and directed the Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...

 Project in which faculty and students at the College of Law assisted the Office of the Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone

Special Court for Sierra Leone

The Special Court for Sierra Leone is an independent judicial body set up to "try those who bear greatest responsibility" for the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Sierra Leone after 30 November 1996 during the Sierra Leone Civil War...

, established by the United Nations and the country's government at the end of the decade-long Sierra Leone Civil War

Sierra Leone Civil War

The Sierra Leone Civil War began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front , with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia , intervened in Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government...

.

Honors and awards

Artz received the Michael J. Tryson Memorial Award for Excellence and Leadership in the field of human rights law.

Books

• Refugees into Citizens: Palestinians and the End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict,published by the Council on Foreign Relations
  Council on Foreign Relations
  The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...
  
  , 1997.