Stuart Beck

Stuart Jay Beck (December 23, 1946 – February 29, 2016) was an American law practitioner and a diplomat for Palau.

Beck was educated at Harvard University (AB, 1968) and Yale Law School (JD, 1971).

Beck's first career move following Yale Law School (1971 through 1977) was to work as an associate for a private law practice in Washington D.C. and New York City, which involved primarily civil and criminal litigation.

As Chief Counsel for the Palau Political Status Commission (1977-1981), H.E. Beck negotiated the decolonization of Palau from the last United Nations trusteeship to a sovereign nation, organized a constitutional convention, negotiated a Compact of Free Association with the United States, and recruited John Kenneth Galbraith to serve as Palau's economic advisor.

While Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Beck spearheaded United Nations initiatives to stop bottom trawling and shark finning, among others.

He founded Ambassadors for Responsibility on Climate Change (ARC) and successfully advanced a resolution to treat climate change as a security issue, prompting a Security Council debate on the topic.

In early 1980, Leslie, a grade school classmate of Beck's future wife Ebiltulik, introduced the two of them.

She is the mother of their four children.

They lived in Manhattan, Bronxville, New York, and Brooklyn, New York, before moving to Manhattan where he passed, across the street from Sloan Kettering.

In 1981, Beck also achieved partner at Richenthal, Birnbaum and Beck.

After this time, Beck went on to co-found and preside as President of Granite Broadcasting Corporation (1988-2004), a diversified portfolio of network-affiliated television stations throughout the United States.

He served at the firm until 1988.

Beck was Jewish.

He returned to New York City after his work in Palau.

With him, a young man named Leslie Tewid who would live with him and attend New York University under Beck's sponsorship.

As a lawyer he helped negotiate the Compact of Free Association, which established Palau as an independent nation in free association with the United States in 1994.

For his contributions to Palau, he was granted honorary citizenship.

In 2003, he accepted the post for Palau's first Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

Ambassador Beck was a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School in 2012, co-teaching a course entitled "Climate Change and the International Court of Justice".

He served continuously in this position until 2013, at which time he was appointed as Palau's first ever United Nations Ambassador for Oceans and Seas.

In addition to that position, Beck co-chaired with Amir Dossal the Sustainable Oceans Alliance, an organization dedicated to the adoption by the General Assembly of a Sustainable Development Goal on Oceans.

Born in Manhattan, New York, to Martin F. Beck and the former Lorraine Hills, Beck was raised in Brooklyn and Lawrence, Nassau County, New York, and attended Woodmere Academy.

In August 2013, Beck relinquished his post as Permanent Representative and was appointed by President Tommy Remengesau as Palau's first ever Ambassador to the Oceans and Seas, with a mandate to initiate essential change at the international level for protection of the marine environments of the world.

On February 29, 2016, Beck died peacefully at home at the age of 69 from renal cancer.