Tom Farer

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Tom Joel Farer (July 28, 1935 – March 3, 2025) was an American academic and author who led the University of New Mexico for a brief period and later chaired the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.

He served as the 13th president of the University of New Mexico from 1985 to 1986, resigning after a controversial year with the university’s Board of Regents. From 1996 to 2010, he was the dean of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and later remained a university professor of international relations there.

Farer earned his undergraduate degree from Princeton University, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School magna cum laude and was Note Editor of the Law Review. He clerked for Judge Learned Hand and then worked in the Department of Defense as special assistant to the General Counsel and to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. He also served as special assistant to the commanding general of the Somali National Police Force and taught criminal law and riot police procedures in Somalia.

His career in law and international affairs spanned many institutions. He practiced at the Wall Street firm David, Polk, and taught at Columbia Law School, Rutgers, Tulane, MIT, Harvard, American University, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Cambridge, IBEI in Barcelona, and the University of Denver. He held leadership roles including President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, and he was a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Council on Foreign Relations. He was also a fellow of the Smithsonian’s Woodrow Wilson International Institute and a consultant to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. He served as an Honorary Professor at Peking University and was a member of The Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C., and the Council on Foreign Relations. He held an honorary doctorate from Panteion University in Athens.

Farer wrote extensively on international relations, law, and politics. His latest books include Confronting Global Terrorism and American Neo-Conservatism: The Framework of a Liberal Grand Strategy (Oxford, 2008) and Migration and Integration: The Case for Liberalism with Borders (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

He died on March 3, 2025, at the age of 89.