His father, a merchant navy officer, drowned when Jenks was eleven and he assumed responsibility with his mother for the family.
[1] He took a double first in history (1929) and law (1931) winning the Cecil Peace Prize in 1928 for a study on international arbitration.
[3]: 481–2 [2] He was part of the ILO delegation at a number of international conferences including: Jenks carried for many years the main responsibility for the ILO's work in international labour standards and human rights.
His ... "Some constitutional problems of international organization" ... was for long the unrivalled source of instruction on that subject for professionals and academics alike.
[1] On 9 October 1973 Jenks was attending a session of the Institut de Droit International in Rome when he had a fatal heart attack.