Mr. Helton began his work with refugees in 1982 when he joined the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in New York. He created a much-replicated program under which lawyers from some of the most prestigious firms in the United States provided free help to poor refugees in their quest for asylum. The program Helton started now represents more than 1,000 asylum seekers each year, winning more than 90 percent of its cases.
During his first year at the Lawyers Committee, Mr. Helton secured the release of some 2,000 fugitives from Haiti held in Florida after convincing a federal judge that he would find volunteer lawyers to represent them at formal asylum hearings.
In 1994, he founded and then directed the Forced Migration Projects at the Open Society Institute.
Helton served since 1999 as program director of peace and conflict studies and senior fellow for refugee studies and preventive action at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank based in Washington, D.C
Helton was widely respected in the human rights community. His last book The Price of Indifference - Refugees and Humanitarian Action in the New Century, both compiles copious data on refugee-inducing conflicts, and makes major policy recommendations. It won praise from Kofi Annan as "highly original" and "ambitious". Kenneth H. Bacon, the president of Refugees International, called it "required reading". Human Right Watch lauded his "hard-nosed and persuasive advocacy". Helton was not just an analyst; he took action. The head of the Lawyers Committee, Michael Posner, said "...Arthur was legendarily hard working and tenacious....Refugees around the world have lost ...one of their leading lights."
He was an adjunct professor at Columbia University. He graduated from Columbia College in New York City in 1971 and from New York University Law School in 1976. He is survived by his wife, Jacqueline D. Gilbert, his mother, Marjorie Helton of Florida, and a sister, Pamela H. Krause of Virginia.
Mr. Helton was in Baghdad to assess humanitarian conditions in Iraq.
Writings
Iraq: lurching toward recovery (by Arthur Helton and Gil Loescher)