Jeswald Salacuse, former dean and longtime professor at The Fletcher School and noted expert on the art of negotiation, died on July 25. He was 86. 

Salacuse, the Henry J. Braker Professor of Law and a Tufts Distinguished Professor, was dean of The Fletcher School from 1986 to 1994. He co-founded Fletcher’s Negotiation and Dispute Resolution Program, was a longtime member of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, and was an experienced international arbitrator. He wrote more than 20 books, including The Law of Investment Treaties, Negotiating Life: Secrets for Everyday Diplomacy and Deal Making, and Real Leaders Negotiate! Gaining, Using, and Keeping the Power to Lead Through Negotiation.

“He was soft-spoken, but possessed a strength of character that commanded enormous authority and respect,” said Eileen Babbitt, professor of the practice of international conflict management at The Fletcher School, one of many colleagues who wrote tributes. “Jes seamlessly integrated his love for negotiation with his practice of arbitration and his seminal scholarship on negotiation in leadership. His constant inquiry and expansive thinking through his writing and teaching inspired all of us.”

Salacuse had a “warm-heartedness and a largeness of spirit that flowed from good will toward everyone he dealt with,” said Michael Glennon, professor of constitutional and international law. “He genuinely liked people; he was interested in their lives. If he could do something that would make those lives easier, he did it.”

As a dean and a professor, Salacuse “set an example for all of us,” said Hurst Hannum, professor emeritus of international law. “He was supportive, thoughtful, kind, and treated everyone—faculty and staff—with respect. He also had a wonderful sense of humor. Most importantly, he was a man of integrity, intelligence, insight, good judgment, and humility. I think that everyone who knew him valued him as a friend who could be counted on.”

After schooling at Hamilton College, Harvard Law School, and the University of Paris, he was encouraged by his father to join the family law firm in Niagara Falls, New York, but Salacuse decided to join the Peace Corps, teaching law in Nigeria. After returning from Africa, he briefly worked for a Wall Street law firm, but his international experience set the stage for the rest of his career.

He was a professor of law and director of research at the National School of Administration in Congo; the Ford Foundation’s Middle East advisor on law and development based in Beirut, Lebanon; and later the foundation’s representative in Sudan. Back in the U.S., he joined the faculty at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law and served as dean before coming to The Fletcher School, where he was dean for nine years and a professor until his retirement in 2020.

In addition to his teaching, Salacuse consulted for multinational companies, government agencies, international organizations, foundations, and foreign governments. He also served as president of the Tufts Faculty Senate. An experienced international arbitrator, he long taught courses on the subject at The Fletcher School and led international arbitration tribunals, including one for the World Bank.

Negotiation was a calling for him—and he was clear that it is a skill everyone needs. “None of us just leads a life or even makes one,” Salacuse wrote in an unpublished memoir. “It is more accurate to say that we negotiate our lives. For each of us, whether sheltered in a condo on the East Side of New York City or in a hut on the African savannah, living is a constant negotiation, a continual process of deal making.”

To get an agreement, Salacuse said in a 2011 Tufts Journal article, you have to understand your goals and stay focused on what you are trying to achieve. “Goals are driven by the interests you are trying to pursue. You really have to stay focused on those goals, because one tendency, especially in negotiations that have been going on a long time, is that you start to think, ‘The deal is really what I want—I want to get an agreement.’ But if the agreement doesn’t help you reach your goals, it is probably best to not make a deal,” he said.

Leadership was a theme in his research and writing, too, in books such as his 2005 Leading Leaders: How to Manage Smart, Talented, Rich, and Powerful People. His own leadership came through “mutual respect, kindness, and process,” said Joel Trachtman, professor of international law at The Fletcher School.

Salacuse “was a servant-leader, never engaging in coercion or bluster. He worked with impeccable integrity and established, then faithfully followed, good processes for decision-making,” Trachtman said.

“Jes was one of the most intellectually inspiring academics I’ve ever known,” said Daniel Shapiro, founder and director of the Harvard International Negotiation Program. “He never sought the limelight; what he pursued was a better world. Through his impassioned work and humanistic spirit, he truly left an indelible mark that has forever changed our world for the better.”