The Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School is proud to announce the creation of the Professor Jeswald W. Salacuse JD’63 Fund, which will support students working on issues related to foreign affairs at the program. The endowed fund was made possible by a gift from the family of the late Professor Salacuse.
Salacuse, who passed away in 2024, was a longtime member of the Program on Negotiation Executive Committee and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He served as dean of the Fletcher School for nine years and previously as dean of the Southern Methodist University Law School.
“Jes Salacuse was a legendary figure in the world of negotiations, international arbitration, and leadership,” says Program on Negotiation Faculty Chair Guhan Subramanian. “We are grateful to be able to carry on some of PON’s work in his honor.”
“Negotiation was my father’s lifelong passion and the way he made sense of the world,” says Salacuse’s daughter, Maria Salacuse. “As a Harvard graduate, he was especially proud to be part of the Program on Negotiation. It embodied his belief that negotiation lives in every human interaction, a lesson he shared not only with his students but with his family as well. He would have taken great pride in knowing that this scholarship will support students in foreign affairs as they pursue the field that shaped his life’s work.”
The Program on Negotiation is currently accepting applications for the first scholarship provided by the new fund, to support one of the annual PON Graduate Research Fellows, with a deadline of February 9.
A Noted Negotiation Scholar and Advisor
Through his research, writing, teaching, and leadership, Salacuse contributed to a wide range of fields. He published more than 20 books on topics that spanned negotiation, leadership, corporate governance, culture, investment, and more. His lively, advice-oriented books on negotiation include Negotiating Life: Secrets for Everyday Diplomacy and Deal Making; Real Leaders Negotiate! Gaining, Using, and Keeping the Power to Lead Through Negotiation; and The Institution Builder’s Toolbox: Strategies for Negotiating Change.
But Salacuse didn’t simply opine on negotiations from the sidelines; he was deeply involved in high-profile deals and conflict-resolution efforts around the globe. “It seemed that every significant corporate deal gone awry would get Jes involved in some way,” according to Subramanian. “He was a renowned scholar and practitioner in the high-stakes world of international arbitration and, as such, gave me a valuable perspective on my own research on international dealmaking.”
Indeed, over the course of his career, “I was negotiating all the time,” Salacuse recalled in Real Leaders Negotiate!
A Valued Colleague
At the Program on Negotiation, Salacuse was a widely respected colleague. “Jes was a mentor to me from the very beginning of my association with PON,” says Subramanian. “He was also a wise and thoughtful man, always a source of useful counsel.”
“During my 25 years as chair of the Program on Negotiation, I so greatly benefited from Jes’s advice and commitment,” says Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Robert Mnookin. “As a former dean, he had deep knowledge of how universities work. His broad international experience and commitment to applied scholarship contributed to PON’s activities across the board.”
“Jes Salacuse was not only an accomplished leader and prodigious scholar; he was a wonderful human being,” says Fletcher School Professor of Practice Eileen Babbitt. “He reached out to younger and older colleagues alike to provide encouragement and praise, and he lived the values of equity and fairness that he espoused in his work.”
“From the early days of the Program on Negotiation, Jes Salacuse’s wise, steadying presence has always strengthened the program,” says Harvard Business School professor James Sebenius. “His quiet insistence on the close connections between effective leadership and negotiation stood out and influenced PON’s flagship executive programs.”
Working for a Better World
The new Program on Negotiation fellows can be expected to carry on Salacuse’s work to promote peace and justice in the United States and abroad.
“I always appreciated his optimistic and proactive approach to world problems,” says Daniel Shapiro, founder and director of the Harvard International Negotiation Program. “Where others saw threats to modern leadership and democratic institutions, Jes saw opportunities to do something constructive to improve the situation.”
Shapiro concludes: “Jes never sought the limelight; what he pursued was a better world.”
The Program on Negotiation, founded in 1983, is a dynamic, interdisciplinary research center dedicated to improving the theory and practice of negotiation and dispute resolution. Committed to nurturing the next generation of negotiation teachers and scholars, PON draws expertise from numerous fields of study, including law, business, government, psychology, economics, anthropology, the arts, and education.
As the short-sighted and narrow-minded competitive national interests tend to dominate the world affairs, the cherished goal of rule of law at international level is jeopardised every now and then. Pendulum of international politics keeps oscillating from one extreme to another, and might is right is the constant refrain of the prosperous and powerful nations. In such a scenario, it is indeed a matter of honour and pride to learn that the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School has set up the Professor Jeswald W. Salacuse JD’63 Fund to support students interested in working on issues related to foreign affairs. Thanks to the magnanimity and generosity of the the distinguished family of the late Professor Salacuse, this endowed fund saw light of the day. international relations and international law are intrinsically enmeshed. Therefore, the Salacuse Fund would rekindle the spirit of solidarity among students of negotiations, law, especially international law as they would be encouraged to undertake serious study of world politics or international affairs too. In the era of water-tight compartments, it is a welcome sign to see the Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation taking this pioneering measure. Diplomacy, negotiations, conciliation, talks, track-two or back channel diplomacy are part and parcel of the international affairs. Be it wars, climate change, WTO, tariffs, educations, double taxation avoidance agreements, nuclear disarmament, biological and chemical weapons, drugs, piracy, outer space, navigation, aviation, counter-terrorism, rare earths, pandemics, IPRs, human rights, AI, privacy, and any other issue for that matter, the role of negotiations is indispensable to maintain world peace and security. This fund is a glowing tribute to the outstanding life and work of Professor Jeswald W. Salacuse. As President John F. Kennedy famously used to say, “let us not fear to negotiate, and let us not negotiate out of fear”.