Damaska is a Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School.
Bjelis said gained international recognition for his work in Croatia by 1972 and that he continued building it as a university professor, first at University of Pennsylvania and as of 1976, at Yale.
He said Damaska and Professor Ivo Banac had launched one of the first Alma Matris Alumni Croatica which contributed to acquainting the American public with the reality of the military aggression on Croatia and the advocacy of the establishment of Croatia's independence in US political circles.
Bjelis said that with his legal advice, Damaska had helped in many issues regarding trials at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
Speaking of his papers on international criminal law, Damaska recalled that in July 1991, in the New York Times, he attacked the argument that the national movements in Slovenia and Croatia should be crushed by armed force because he feared that what seemed like the dawn of Croatian independence would never see the light of day.
Damaska was born in a Croatian family in Slovenia in 1931. He has written 13 books.