Keith Highet, 67, an international lawyer who was a partner in the trial department of the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery and who also was a past president of the American Society of International Law, died July 12 at his home in Washington. He had esophageal cancer.
Mr. Highet came to the Washington area in 1997 when he joined the Washington offices of the Chicago-based law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery. Before that, he had practiced law in New York.
His clients have included 17 foreign governments, the United Nations and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Earlier this year, he had served on the international legal affairs committee that advised the prime minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina on combating internal corruption. He was a consultant to the Azerbaijan State Oil Co.
Over the years, he also served on a number of panels dealing with border disputes, including those between Eritrea and Yemen and between Peru and Ecuador. He also had chaired a legal panel of Philippine President Aquino's Commission on Good Government.
At the time of his death, he was chairman of the Organization of American States' Inter-American Judicial Committee and a director of the Law of the Sea Institute. Over the years, he had taught courses in international law at such institutions as George Washington University's law school and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Service in Washington.
He was a member of the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law. He was the author of 13 book chapters and 30 technical articles on international law.
Mr. Highet, a Marine Corps veteran, was the son of literature professor and writer Gilbert Highet and thriller-writer Helen MacInnes. He was born in Oxford, England, and came to the United States at an early age. He grew up in New York.
He was a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University and a 1960 graduate its law school. He also had studied as a Fulbright fellow at Oxford University's Balliol College in the 1950s.
Survivors include his wife, Margel Lindzey Highet of Washington; three children, Ian Douglas Highet of New York, Eliot Highet Patty of South Salem, N.Y., and Mary Marshall Highet of Edgartown, Mass.; and two grandchildren.