D. Arzt, professor of international law

Donna E. Arzt, 53, formerly of Levittown, a professor of international law at Syracuse University who aided families who lost loved ones in the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, died Saturday at Crouse Hospital in Syracuse, N.Y.

The cause of death was multiple systems atrophy, a neurological disease.

Ms. Arzt was the director of the Lockerbie Trial Families Project. The project, established with a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, kept families of the 270 victims of the 1988 explosion informed about trial proceedings of the terrorists accused of bombing the plane.

In 2001, a former Libyan intelligence agent was convicted of the bombing in a Scottish court convened in the Netherlands. Later, the Libyan government agreed to settle millions of dollars in lawsuits for the victims' survivors.

Ms. Arzt grew up in Levittown and graduated from Pennsbury High School. She earned a bachelor's degree from Brandeis University; a law degree from Harvard University; and a master's degree in comparative constitutional law from Columbia University.

Before joining the faculty of the Syracuse University College of Law in 1988, she was an assistant attorney general in Massachusetts and practiced public interest law in Boston.

Ms. Arzt founded the Center for Global Law and Practice at Syracuse. She also co-directed a program in which law school students and faculty assisted the prosecution in the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor.

Ms. Arzt was former director of the Soviet Jewry Legal Advocacy Center. She was also a consultant to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, to Human Rights Watch, and to the United Nations on issues involving population transfers.

She was the author of numerous articles, including two commentaries published in The Inquirer. In 1997 she wrote the book

Refugees Into Citizens: Palestinians and the End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

.

Ms. Arzt kept in contact with many former students, and with high-school, college and law-school classmates, her father, Alvin, said. She collected baseball hats and Haggadahs, the Jewish texts that set out the order of the Passover seder. She loved ice cream, chocolate, cats, and the television show

Law and Order

.

In addition to her father, Ms. Arzt is survived by her mother, Lois Arzt; a sister, Andrea; and a nephew.

A graveside service will be at 11 a.m. today at Roosevelt Memorial Park, 2701 Old Lincoln Highway, Trevose. A memorial service will be held at a later date at the Syracuse University College of Law.

Donations may be made to the New Israel Fund, 1101 14th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005.