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Louis Henkin (1917-2010) was a prominent figure in international human rights law and taught at Columbia Law School for over sixty years. Henkin published more than twenty books on constitutionalism, foreign policy, human rights, and international law, and served as an expert member of the United Nations' Human Rights Committee. The collection consists of 22 linear feet of Henkin's professional record, primarily from the last twenty-five years of his career, and focuses on his teaching activity, writings, and work for the United Nations.

This collection contains the records of the Research in Contemporary Cultures project (1947-1953) begun by Ruth Benedict at Columbia University, and carried out by Margaret Mead at Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History after Benedict's death in 1948. The records of three successor projects, Studies in Soviet Culture (1948-1952), Studies in Contemporary Culture (1951-1952), and and Study Program of Human Health and the Ecology of Man (1954-1956) are also included. The purpose of these projects was anthropological study at a distance of global cultures inaccessible for direct observation, in an attempt to establish the "national character" of countries of geopolitical interest to the United States government.