Soccer diplomacy meets ICC


(Another in IntLawGrrls' series of Kampala Conference posts)

With World Cup fever abubble here in my California home (I've got USA in the family pool, my husband's keen on Argentina, and my son's gaga for Ghana), could not let pass this news from the site of the International Criminal Court Review Conference.
In a Sunday prelude to the 2-week conference that began yesterday, the United Nations played a friendly against Uganda Dignity at a stadium in Kampala.
Above, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, center, makes a play for a ball controlled by Uganda President Yoweri Museveni, left. (credit for photo by Stephen Wandera, courtesy of Uganda's Daily Monitor) The 2 arrived for a "six-minute cameo" toward the end of the charity contest, dubbed the "War Victims Day Football Game" and sponsored by the Uganda Victims Foundation and the Africa Youth Initiative Network aided by the NGO No Peace Without Justice.
The U.N. side lost one-nil. Scoring the lone and winning goal was a "Darfur war victim, Abdallah Lasanusi."
The photo's smiles-all-around exemplifies this month's theme of diplomacy, globalization, and soccer -- er, football -- popularized in books like this and this.

On June 1

On this day in ...
... 1985 (25 years ago today), the "Battle of the Beanfield" took place in England. A bellwether of a more peaceful time, it was, according to the BBC, "the first major test of an English Heritage ban on midsummer festivals at Stonehenge" (left). More than 300 "hippies" on their way to the ancient mysterious ring of stone, about 13 km from Salisbury, were arrested "by 500 police officers, who blocked a road and refused to let them pass."

(Prior June 1 posts are here, here, and here.)

'Nuff Said: The Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009

(Another in IntLawGrrls' series of Kampala Conference posts)

KAMPALA, Uganda – As we finalize the first day of the ICC Review Conference here, it is worth highlighting an important piece of new legislation of particular relevance to our work here. On May 24, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009. His signing statement is a moving tribute the importance of accountability for atrocities committed in Uganda (picture credit) and is worth quoting here in full:

Today, I signed into law the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009. The legislation crystallizes the commitment of the United States to help bring an end to the brutality and destruction that have been a hallmark of the LRA across several countries for two decades, and to pursue a future of greater security and hope for the people of central Africa.

The Lord’s Resistance Army preys on civilians – killing, raping, and mutilating the people of central Africa; stealing and brutalizing their children; and displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Its leadership, indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, has no agenda and no purpose other than its own survival. It fills its ranks of fighters with the young boys and girls it abducts. By any measure, its actions are an affront to human dignity.

Of the millions affected by the violence, each had an individual story and voice that we must not forget. In northern Uganda, we recall Angelina Atyam’s 14-year old daughter, whom the LRA kidnapped in 1996 and held captive for nearly eight years -- one of 139 girls abducted that day from a boarding school. In southern Sudan, we recall John Loboi -- a father, a husband, a brother, a local humanitarian assistance worker killed in an ambush while helping others in 2003. Now, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic, the people of Dungu and of Obo, too, have their stories of loss and pain.

We mourn those killed. We pray for those abducted to be freed, and for those wounded to heal. We call on the ranks of the LRA to disarm and surrender. We believe that the leadership of the LRA should be brought to justice.

I signed this bill today recognizing that we must all renew our commitments and strengthen our capabilities to protect and assist civilians caught in the LRA’s wake, to receive those that surrender, and to support efforts to bring the LRA leadership to justice. The Bill reiterates U.S. policy and our commitment to work toward a comprehensive and lasting resolution to the conflict in northern Uganda and other affected areas, including northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, southern Sudan, and the Central African Republic. We will do so in partnership with regional governments and multilateral efforts.

I commend the Government of Uganda for its efforts to stabilize the northern part of the country, for actively supporting transitional and development assistance, and for pursuing reintegration programs for those who surrender and escape from the LRA ranks.

I also want the governments of other LRA-affected countries to know that we are aware of the danger the LRA represents, and we will continue to support efforts to protect civilians and to end this terrible chapter in central African history. For over a decade, the United States has worked with others to respond to the LRA crisis. We have supported peace process and reconciliation, humanitarian assistance and regional recovery, protection of civilians and reintegration for former combatants, and have supported regional governments as they worked to provide for their people’s security. Going forward, we will call on our partners as we all renew our efforts.

I congratulate Congress for seizing on this important issue, and I congratulate the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have mobilized to respond to this unique crisis of conscience. We have heard from the advocacy organizations, non-governmental organizations, faith-based groups, humanitarian actors who lack access, and those who continue to work on this issue in our own government. We have seen your reporting, your websites, your blogs, and your video postcards -- you have made the plight of the children visible to us all. Your action represents the very best of American leadership around the world, and we are committed to working with you in pursuit of the future of peace and dignity that the people of who have suffered at the hands of the LRA deserve.


Hear, hear...

Watch Boston Celtics vs Los Angeles Lakers NBA Finals 2010 Game 1 Live Stream Online

The Boston Celtics hit the road on Thursday, June 3, 2010 9:00 PM ET when they pay a visit to the Los Angeles Lakers at Staples Center for Game 1 of their Best-of-7 Series in the 2010 NBA Finals. Watch NBA live online Celtics vs Lakers Game 1 Finals and keep up with the exciting basketball action right at your home.

The Lakers are 42-7 at home this season and 22-8 against Eastern opponents. They are averaging 104.6 scoring and holding teams to 95.7 points scored on defense. On offense they are ranked 8, averaging 102.3 points per game.

The Celtics, meanwhile, are 31-18 on the road this season and 17-13 against Western opponents. They are averaging 98.2 scoring on the road and holding teams to 94.5 points scored on defense. On offense they are ranked 19, averaging 98.8 points per game.

Enjoy live score, preview, recaps and highlights as you watch 2010 NBA Finals live streaming online Boston Celtics vs Los Angeles Lakers Game 1 this Thursday night.

Remembering women in service

On this Memorial Day, we note a recent discovery:
In a corner of Washington's Arlington National Cemetery stands the Women in Military Service for American Memorial, "the only major national memorial in our nation's history to honor and pay tribute to all servicewomen of the United States Armed Forces — past, present and future." (photo credit)
Dedicated in 1997, the 4-acre monument, including glass tablets and a reflecting pool, lies at the cemetery's Ceremonial Entrance. Inside may be found a computer database about a quarter-million of the 2 million women who've served, as well as multimedia exhibits including photographs (like that at right of Margaret (Zane) Fleming, an Army nurse at a Korean War MASH unit), recordings, and items used by U.S. servicewomen throughout the centuries.

Kuvaanko juhlakuvat itse vai pyydänkö kaveria?


Ylessä oli tällainen uutinen, jossa kerrotaan, että moni pyytää perheejäsentä tai kaveria kuvaamaan perhejuhlissa. Ylioppilasjuhlat ovat tulossa moneen kotiin ensi viikonloppuna ja juhlakuvia tarvitaan taas.

Suomessa ei oikein ole perinteitä palvelujen käyttämiselle yksityisellä kuluttajalla. Suomalainen haluaa tehdä kaiken itse ja minä olen oikein hyvä esimerkki sellaisesta ihmisestä. Haluan tehdä kaikki itse, enkä palkkaa ammattilaista kovinkaan helposti.

Valokuvauksen kanssa on ehkäpä korostetusti näin. Ylioppilas- tai muutkin perhejuhlakuvat voi jokainen toteuttaa ihan niin kuin itse haluaa, mutta se jolle kuvaajan osa lankeaa ei taatusti paljon juhlista voi nauttia. Joku innokas harrastaja voi tietenkin olla innoissaankin kuvausvastuusta, mutta saattaa siitä stressiäkin tulla kokemattomalle.

Kannattaa miettiä kaksi kertaa ennen kuin pyytää kaveria kuvaamaan perhejuhlissa ja kannattaa myös miettiä kaksi kertaa ennen kuin suostuu kuvaajaksi. Voi olla mukavampi nauttia juhlatunnelmasta ilman työvastuuta. Jos juhliin ei ole asiaa kuvaamisesta kieltäytymisen jälkeen, niin ne juhlat kannattaa jättää väliin joka tapauksessa.

Ylläolevan kuvan tein ystävälleni vuonna 2007. En ollut juhissa vieraana, vaan poikkesin pikaisesti kuvaamassa virallisen rippikuvan. Kuvasimme varjossa, ystäväni piti heijastinta ohjeideni mukaan ja minä kuvasin. Erittäin yksinkertaiseti toteutettu ja toimiva ratkaisu. Ei ehkä potrettikuvaajien ohjekirjan mukaan tehty, mutta toimiva. Kuvasin Canon 5D kameralla ja Canon 70 - 200 mm f/2.8 zoomilla aukolla f/4.

Black Women Teaching International Law (II)




I'm already making a start on new posts for the "Black Women Teaching International Law" list! The first highlights Anna Williams Shavers (photo, right), Cline Williams Professor of Citizenship Chair, University of Nebraska College of Law--Lincoln. Her expertise and teaching focus on Immigration Law, International Gender Issues, and Refugee & Asylum Law.

On May 31

On this day in ...
...1975 (35 years ago today), the European Space Agency was established the day after plenipotentiaries meeting in Paris approved the ESA Convention, which formally entered into force 5-1/2 years later. The ESA's purpose is "to provide for, and to promote, for exclusively peaceful purposes, cooperation among European States in space research and technology and their space applications ..." It's also involved in monitoring of the global environment, including the Gulf of Mexico oil debacle, which IntLawGrrls have discussed in posts available here.

(Prior May 31 posts are here, here, and here.)

Against aggression

(1 in a series of IntLawGrrls' Kampala Conference posts)

Serendipity led me this month finally to read Victors' Justice.
Over the years I'd often given it the Washington read -- the flip through the index to pinpoint selected passages -- and cited it accordingly (e.g., here and here). After all, this 1971 work by Amherst History Professor Richard H. Minear stands as a landmark critique of the post-World War II trial of Japanese leaders before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (above left).
The serendipity of my close read this month surfaced as early as page xi.
In the preface penned in May 1971 -- when controversy over the Vietnam War was seething -- Minear endorsed prosecution for "conventional war crimes" like those committed 3 years earlier at My Lai (additional post). Minear also supported holding "at least two American presidents and their civilian and military advisors" accountable for tactics deemed "of highly dubious legal character" by no less a figure than retired Brigadier General Telford Taylor (right), a former top U.S. Prosecutor before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and author of Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy (1970). Yet Minear warned against any court going any further:

But when the issue is not conventional war crimes but aggression, when it is the whole course of American policy and indeed the history of Indochina and East and Southeast Asia, then I must demur.
Hence the serendipity.
Minear's demurrer brought immediately to mind the 2-week International Criminal Court Review Conference set to begin tomorrow in Kampala, Uganda. As detailed in the superb series that IntLawGrrl Beth Van Schaack launched last year, among the key action items that the ICC Assembly of State Parties will take up at Kampala are, 1st, whether to define the "crime of aggression" enumerated in Article 5 of the ICC Statute and, 2d, whether to make that definition operational, thus authorizing the ICC to punish individuals found guilty of the offense.
Supporters of international criminal justice have divided on these questions.
► Among the staunchest advocates of a "Yes" approach is another U.S. prosecutor at Nuremberg, Benjamin B. Ferencz (below right), who wrote in a March 2010 letter published online:
[T]he lock which now exists preventing aggressors from being tried must be removed from the courthouse door. Failure to make 'the supreme international crime' punishable by the ICC would, in fact, be a repudiation of the Nuremberg Principles and the rule of law. It would be a step backward instead of forward.
► Among several experts who answer "No" is former South Africa Constitutional Court Justice Richard Goldstone (below left), who served as the 1st Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and for the former Yugoslavia. In an International Herald Tribune op-ed published last week (hat tip), Goldstone wrote:
Grappling with aggression now also threatens to open rifts among members of the Court. Despite years of complex negotiations, deep disagreements persist over key issues related to amending the statute on aggression, such as state consent and how cases would be initiated. Attempting to force a decision absent consensus would vitiate one of the strongest assets the Court has had — the solidarity of it members in the face of efforts to undermine the project.
In Victors' Justice -- self-avowed "political scholarship" (p. xiii) written decades ago -- Minear cited other considerations that counsel an ICC "No" vote this year.
► Minear doubted that any criminal tribunal could make a record sufficiently close to the truth about responsibility for starting a war, even as he allowed that for a court to "come closer to the truth" than the Tokyo Tribunal did in its 1948 judgment "would be child's play." (p. xi) (Skepticism about the assignment to international criminal tribunals of a truth-telling function has inspired my own scholarship; see, e.g., pp. 132-33 here.)
► Minear further contended that the pursuit of convictions for aggression -- not for atrocities committed during conflict, but rather for "the war itself" -- would have little utility beyond being "politically convenient and satisfying." (p. xi) He expanded on the political aspects of proceeding against persons who lost World War II:

The reverse of the coin of enemy criminality was the rightness of the course pursued by the Allies in the same years. The trials were designed not only to punish wrongdoers but also to justify the right side, our side.
(p. 13) The distance between those designs and the traditional goals of criminal justice reveals the condemnation implicit in Minear's contention.
What's more, the villainization of 1 side via an aggression prosecution could diminish a prosecutor's appetite to pursue perpetrators of atrocities on all sides. (Any such risk simply compounds the problems of randomness and selectivity, discussed here at pp. 116-17, that are endemic to international criminal justice.) Post-World War II examples of this risk may be found in -- to cite Taylor's 1992 memoir, The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trial -- the Nuremberg indictment of Germans for atrocities at Katyn that in fact were committed by troops of an Allied country, as well as the absence of judicial scrutiny of Allied bombing efforts in Europe and Japan alike. (Minear too treated the latter; see pp. 99-102.) More recent are allegations that ad hoc tribunals have concentrated overmuch on crimes by members of disfavored groups, such as the Serbs and the Hutu, and not enough on the crimes of those groups' rivals.
► Minear detailed concerns like these throughout the couple-hundred pages of his book. His litany supported the policy conclusion that he articulated as early as p. xi:
The Tokyo trial is a bad precedent, bad enough, I suggest, to cast doubt on the Nuremberg precedent as well. The wiser course would be to return to the international law of the period before 1945, when atrocities were considered justiciable but the issue of aggression was not.
Minear's arguments retain force today, 39 years to the month after they were written. Still valid too are concerns underlying Minear's work: revulsion against the evils of warfare, coupled with distaste for the threat that the reality of politicization poses to the meaning of justice. It shows that one may be against aggression in a double sense; that is, against individual criminal prosecution of aggression even while remaining steadfastly against the commission, by individual, state, or nonstate entity, of aggression.
Thus does Minear's conclusion back then suggest a "wiser course" for the ICC right now:
Focus not on assessing the criminality-or-not of a given conflict, but rather on assuring the proper criminal punishment of persons responsible for the world's worst offenses.

(Cross-posted at ASIL Blog - International Criminal Court Review Conference)

On May 30

On this day in ...
... 1918, a daughter, Guadalupe, was born in Mexico City, the youngest of 7 children, to aristocrats of French, German, and Spanish heritage. Called audacious and rebellious for her acting and modeling exploits, the girl -- who as a poet came to be known as Pita Amor -- counted among her friends many of Mexico's artistic and intellectual elite, including Diego Rivera, who created the ca. 1950s portrait of Amor at left (credit), and an IntLawGrrls foremother, Gabriela Mistral. Amor's poetry is noted as 1st-person musings on metaphysics; among the poets who inspired her was another foremother, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Amor died in 2000, at age 81, in the city of her birth.


(Prior May 30 posts are here, here, and here.)

News---Introducing The Journal of the Civil War Era

The University of North Carolina Press and the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at the Pennsylvania State University are pleased to announce the 2011 launch of a new publication, The Journal of the Civil War Era. William Blair, of the Pennsylvania State University, has agreed to serve as founding editor.

The new journal will take advantage of the flowering of research on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century.

The Journal of the Civil War Era aims to create a space where scholars across the many subfields that animate nineteenth-century history can enter into conversation with each other.
The journal is determined to publish the most creative new work on the full range of topics of interest to scholars of this period. Besides offering fresh perspectives on military, political, and legal history of the era, articles, essays, and reviews will attend to slavery and antislavery, labor and capitalism, popular culture and intellectual history, expansionism and empire, and African American and women’s history. Moreover, the editors mean The Journal of the Civil War Era to be a venue where scholars engaged in race, gender, transnational, and the full range of theoretical perspectives that animate historical practice can find a home. By bringing together scholars from areas that now intersect only sporadically, the publisher and editor hope to galvanize the larger field of nineteenth-century history intellectually and professionally.

In addition to peer-reviewed, cutting-edge scholarship, the journal will offer a variety of other elements designed to engage historians, sharpen debate, and hone practices in the profession, in the classroom, and in theory and method.

•Review essays that analyze emergent themes and map new directions in historiography.
•Book reviews by experienced, published scholars that offer critical perspectives on key works in the field and the discipline.
•Reviews of films, digital archive collections, websites, museum exhibitions, and interventions in other media.
•Columns on the profession that alert readers to recent issues in the job market, teaching, and technology and help historians of the Civil War Era find the leading edge of these trends.

The work of drawing scholars together in this enterprise is under way. Anthony E. Kaye of Pennsylvania State University will serve as Associate Editor for Books and Review; Aaron Sheehan-Dean of the University of North Florida as Associate Editor for the Profession. The Journal of the Civil War Era is recruiting an editorial board with a wide range of specialties and theoretical engagements. We will be trying to recruit scholars whose expertise spans these kinds of approaches, to name a few: military, politics, culture, social, slavery, antislavery, emancipation, gender, environment, and antebellum U.S.

The editors are also reaching out to historians to contribute articles, reviews, and essays for the first issues of the journal to appear in 2011. We invite interested scholars of all fields, methods, and orientation to submit manuscripts, proposals, and the names of other scholars who might contribute to the journal.

Text and Image Source: Journal of the Civil War Era

Black Women Teaching International Law (U.S.)

Quick! Name the Black women who teach international, comparative, foreign relations, or immigration/asylum law at U.S. law schools!
A friend asked me this awhile back, but I realize now that it should be an impossible task. There should be far too many to name in a single blogpost.
It’s like asking someone to name the women in international law. We couldn’t possibly provide a comprehensive response to any such request, but IntLawGrrls includes many such voices here. See posts on
--women who are experts on international law;
--women who participated in recent meetings or the leadership of the American Society of International Law;
--or the many regular contributors and guest bloggers on IntLawGrrls.com (see list at right). Still, not enough women in international law.
The field has made some progress in the inclusion of African-American and other Black women since people like the late Professor Goler Teal Butcher, an IntLawGrrls foremother, opened new paths. (See, e.g., Henry J. Richardson, Tribute: African-Americans in International Law: for Professor Goler Teal Butcher, 37 Howard Law Journal 21 (1994) and Hope Lewis, ed., Blacks in U.S. Foreign Policy: A Retrospective (TransAfrica Forum, 1987).
Still, we “have promises to keep,/And miles to go before (we) sleep.”
I will likely inadvertently omit some obvious names, but one must begin somewhere...So, here’s a start. I hope that readers will add names in the comment section or contact me directly with updates so that there can be a “part II” (and, someday, an impossibly long list).
Special thanks to Dr. Jeremy Levitt, who organized a roundtable: “Toward an International Law of Black Women: New Theory, New Praxis” co-sponsored by ASIL and the Florida A & M University College of Law in March. Thanks as well to members of the Association of American Law Schools Minority Law Professors’ List-serv for their suggestions. Of course, this list does not include non-Global Law fields in which these scholars teach, so I've linked to their bio pages for the full story.
Adjoa A. Aiyetoro, (photo, right) Associate Professor of Law, William H. Bowen School of Law, University of Arkansas, Little Rock (International Human Rights Law, Reparations)
Michele Alexandre (photo, left), Associate Professor of Law, University of Mississippi School of Law (International Human Rights Law)
Rachel J. Anderson (photo, left), Associate Professor of Law, William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (International Law, International Human Rights, International Business Transactions), an IntLawGrrls guest/alumna.
Penelope E. Andrews (photo, below right), Professor of Law and incoming Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law (International Human Rights Law (including critical approaches to gender and race/intersectionality)) (Her IntLawGrrls guest posts are here.)
Angela M. Banks (photo, right), Assistant Professor of Law, William & Mary Law School (International Law, Immigration Law, Human Rights Law, Gender and Human Rights)
Taunya Lovell Banks (photo, left), Jacob A. France Professor of Equality Jurisprudence and Francis & Harriet Iglehart Research Professor of Law (Race, Subordination, and Citizenship)
IntLawGrrl Karen E. Bravo (photo right), Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis (International Law, International Business Transactions, International Trade Law, Illicit International Markets) (Her posts are here.)
Eleanor M. Brown (photo right), Associate Professor, George Washington University School of Law (U.S. Immigration and Global Development Policy)
Margaret A. Burnham (photo, below center), Professor of Law, Northeastern University School of Law (International Criminal Law, Comparative Constitutional Law, International Human Rights Law)



Danielle Conway (formerly Conway-Jones) (photo, left), Professor of Law, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii (International Intellectual Property Law, Comparative Intellectual Property)
Lisa A. Crooms (photo, left), Professor of Law, Howard University Law School (International Human Rights, Human Rights and Gender, Human Rights in the U.S.)
Marcella David (Photo, right), Professor of Law, Associate Dean for International and Comparative Law, University of Iowa College of Law (Public International Law, U.S. Foreign Relations Law, International Organizations, Human Rights)
Marsha A. Echols (photo, right), Professor of Law, Howard University Law School (International Law, International Business Transactions, International Sales, International Economic Law)
IntLawGrrl Marjorie Florestal (photo, left), Associate Professor of Law, Pacific McGeorge School of Law (European Union Law, International Trade and Development) (See IntLawGrrls posts here.)
Erika R. George (photo, right), Professor of Law, S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah (Internaitonal Human Rights Law, International Environmental Law)
Ruth Gordon (photo, right), Professor of Law, Villanova Law School (International Law, International Trade and Investment, International Environmental Law
Linda S. Greene (photo, left), Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Law (Sports Law (comparative and international), former member, U.S. Olympics Committee)
Tanya Kateri Hernandez (photo, right), Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law (Comparative Law (civil rights, race relations, and inheritance law), Latin American Studies, Latinos and the Law)
Lolita K. Buckner Inniss (photo, right), Professor of Law, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland State University (Comparative Racism & the Law--U.S./Canada, Immigration Law)
Sylvia Kang'ara (photo, right) , Professor of Law, University of Washington School of Law (International Law, Comparative Private Law)
Deana E. Lewis (photo, left), Adjunct Professor of Law, Florida A & M University College of Law (International Law and the Human Rights of Women)
Hope Lewis (photo, left), Professor of Law, Northeastern University School of Law (International Law, International Human Rights and the Global Economy, Transnational Dimensions of Race, Gender, and Culture) (See my IntLawGrrls posts here.)
Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald (photo above, top), President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (1997-1999) (has taught at several law schools, including St. Mary’s University, the University of Texas and Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law).
Gay J. McDougall (photo, left), Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Washington College of Law, American University (2006-2008), UN Independent Expert on Minority Issues (International Human Rights Law, Comparative Race Relations, U.S. Foreign Relations Law) (see IntLawGrrls posts here.)
Michelle McKinley (photo, right), Assistant Professor of Law, University of Oregon School of Law (Public International Law, Immigration Law, Refugee & Asylum Law)
Odeana R. Neal (photo, below center), Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law (Law and Human Rights)


Camille A. Nelson, Professor of Law, Hofstra Law School (Comparative Criminal Law, Transnational Law)
Leslye Obiora (photo, left), Professor of Law, James E. Rogers College of Law, University of Arizona (Public International Law, International Human Rights Law)
Catherine Powell (photo, right), Associate Professor of Law, Fordham Law School (on leave at U.S. Department of State) (International Law, Human Rights, Comparative Constitutional Law
Chantal Thomas (photo, left), Professor of Law, Cornell Law School (International Law and Developing Countries, International Trade Law, Globalization and the Law)
Adrien Katherine Wing (photo, right), Bessie Dutton Murray Professor, College of Law, University of Iowa (International Human Rights Law, Comparative Constitutional Law, U.S. Foreign Relations)
Jeanne M. Woods (photo, left), Henry F. Bonura Distinguished Professor, Loyola University School of Law, New Orleans (Public International Law, International Trade Law, International Human Rights Law) More than I thought, fewer than I hoped for, but what an inspiring enterprise researching this post has been!

News---Sculptor Michael Kraus Restores Antietam Monument

Civil War's General Nagle Finally Gets His Sword Back, Marylynne Pitz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 29, 2010.

In 1848, when James Nagle returned home to Pottsville after serving in the Mexican War, Schuylkill County residents gave the 26-year-old hero a beautifully engraved, silver presentation sword with a purple amethyst at its handle. Brig. Gen. Nagle treasured the weapon, carrying it through the Civil War's bloody hours at Second Bull Run, Antietam and Fredericksburg, where his brigade of 1,500 men suffered heavy casualties. The only Pennsylvanian to recruit four regiments for the Union Army during the Civil War, Gen. Nagle was honored again in 1904 when 36 surviving veterans of the 48th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry erected a statue of him at Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Md. And, by design, a bronze sword hung beside the statue.

Sometime in the 1920s -- no one seems to know how or when -- the weapon attached to the 7-foot-tall statue disappeared. During a ceremony today, the figure of a man so beloved by his soldiers that they looked upon him as a friend will be given a new sword created by Mike Kraus, a McCandless artist, historian and Civil War re-enactor.

Great-great-grandchildren of the general are expected to come from North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Arizona, said John David Hoptak, a National Park Service ranger at Antietam. The author of two Civil War books and an authority on Gen. Nagle, Mr. Hoptak expects as many as 60 people for the ceremony. "I'm looking forward to that," he said.

Like his hero, Mr. Hoptak also hails from Schuylkill County, north of Philadelphia. He noticed that the sword was missing and in 2008, began raising $7,000 to pay for a new one. He was aided by Western Maryland Interpretative Association, a nonprofit group that runs the bookstore at Antietam. Donations arrived from descendants of Gen. Nagle and regimental veterans. "I think he represented the American spirit of the 19th century," Mr. Hoptak said. "There was a devotion to duty and to the nation. He had no military training, but he raised a company that fought in Mexico."

Gen. Nagle's daring leadership earned his men's respect. "He was always leading from the front. He had a good ability to inspire his men on the battlefield. He took care of them," Mr. Hoptak said. "We always regarded you as a friend and father, rather than a mere military commander," one of his soldiers wrote in a letter dated October 1861. His men presented him then with a field glass, a forerunner of binoculars. The instrument allowed him to get a better look at terrain and troop movements. While he earned a living as a painter, paper hanger and county sheriff, Gen. Nagle may have been influenced by a relative's example.

"His own grandfather fought in the Revolutionary War under [George] Washington. Perhaps that was an inspiration. His grandfather lived until the 1840s and was around for Nagle's adolescence," Mr. Hoptak said. A year after the Civil War ended, Gen. Nagle, 44, died of heart disease, leaving behind a wife and seven children.

"She never remarried but she did fight to get a pension from his military service. ... Most of the children were under 18 at the time of his death," Mr. Hoptak said. Earlier this month, Mr. Kraus, curator at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum in Oakland, traveled to Antietam with the new 44-inch-long sword and took measurements to make sure that it fit properly. Cast in bronze at a Cleveland foundry and weighing 9 pounds, this new solid bronze weapon will be carefully attached to the statue and draped in an American flag until it is unveiled today. To make the new version, Mr. Kraus examined photographs of Gen. Nagle's original presentation sword, which was donated by a descendant in 1999 to the Schuylkill County Historical Society.

Mr. Kraus, who earned a degree in fine art at Edinboro University in 1976, is no stranger to working in bronze. In 2000, he created a Holocaust memorial for Temple Ohav Shalom in McCandless. In a more recent commission, he used 850 pounds of memorial plaques from various Jewish congregations that have closed to forge a new sculpture. From the plaques, he created six bronze triangles that emerge from a boulder at a Beaver Falls cemetery in Beaver County. Together, the bronze triangles form a six-pointed Star of David. But this is the first sword he has ever made. He is excited to see his work at Antietam, and to see Gen. Nagle's statue intact once more.

Text and Photo Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Caption: "Artist and Civil War historian Mike Kraus, left, and National Park Service ranger John David Hoptak at the statue of Brig. Gen. James Nagle. A new bronze sword Mr. Kraus made for the statue in his McCandless studio will be unveiled during a dedication ceremony today at Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Md.It connected me to the battlefield and the memorials that were placed there. We said we care. We said we want to see it the way the veterans envisioned it. We put it back to what it was."

Middle Image Source: Schuylkill County

Bottom Image Source: Nagle with presentation sword. Save Historic Antietam Foundation
 
Bloggers Team