Go On! ICJ's Greenwood @ California-Davis

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest)

The California International Law Center at King Hall, for which I serve as founding Director, is honored to host a public address by Sir Christopher Greenwood (below right) on the topic of "The Role of the International Court of Justice in the Global Community." Posing post-lecture questions to Judge Greenwood will be California-Davis Law Professors Andrea K. Bjorklund (IntLawGrrls' very 1st guest/alumna), Anupam Chander, and yours truly.
The event will take place at 4 p.m. this Tuesday, March 1, at the Kalmanovitz Appellate Courtroom 1001, University of California, Davis, School of Law, 400 Mrak Hall Drive.
Appointed to the ICJ in 2009, Greenwood already has sat on a number of important cases, among them the 2010 Kosovo Advisory Opinion (prior posts available here). Greenwood also has been a Professor of International Law at the London School of Economics, an arbitrator on matters involving the law of the sea and the international sale of goods, and a barrister on matters not only before British national courts, but also before international fora such as the European Court of Human Rights, the Court of Justice of the European Communities, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the U.N. Compensation Commission.
Cohosting will be 2 California-Davis student groups, the International Law Society and the Journal of International Law & Policy. Also supporting this talk, as well as a session at Stanford Law and a private judges' luncheon, is the American Society of International Law.
Details on Tuesday's event are here.

ASIL, Midwest & beyond

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this guest post about a new venture, ASIL Midwest)

On February 22 and 23, IntLawGrrl Lucy Reed (left) and Elizabeth "Betsy" Andersen (below right), the President and the Executive Director, respectively, of the American Society of International Law, will travel to Illinois for two days of ASIL outreach and programming.

While in Champaign as the guests of my home institution (and an ASIL Academic Partner), the University of Illinois College of Law, Lucy and Betsy will meet with faculty and students both from the College of Law and other university units, as well as with local attorneys and judges.

Specific program elements will include:

► Betsy’s “appearance” on a local public radio program, discussing the intersection of international and domestic law in the area of human rights; and

► Lucy’s teaching of the International Commercial Arbitration class.

More public events will include a panel on Careers in International Law and a panel on International Law and the Global Financial Crisis.
Lucy, Betsy, and I (below left) will then travel to Chicago, where, as the guests of the University of Chicago Law School, we'll take part in two panels on International Law and the Global Financial Crisis. Lucy’s and Betsy’s visit to the Midwest will conclude with a lunch at the American Bar Foundation, as the guest of the University of Illinois College of Law and the American Bar Foundation’s Center on Law and Globalization, to meet members of the Chicago practice, corporate, and philanthropic community.
We hope for a good turnout at these events, which follow on an earlier regional project, the ASIL West interest group that was launched a few years ago on the West Coast, and for which Co-Chairs have included IntLawGrrl Diane Marie Amann and guest/alumna Andrea K. Bjorklund. (prior IntLawGrrls posts) We would like to encourage other ASIL members -- and particularly Academic Partner schools -- to consider hosting such programs in their own regions.

As ASIL members, we have all heard that ASIL did not have enough programming for those of us living outside the New York and Washington areas. We can do something about that by organizing programs. Of course, there are the challenges of resources and distance, but programs need not aspire to be mini-ASIL annual meetings. They should just be occasions for attention to international law, our work as international lawyers, and ASIL. The key is to make programming flexible enough so that any of us who might want to be part of a regular schedule of ASIL programming in our regions can do so. And, if we share hosting duties, then perhaps no one and no institution will be unduly burdened.

What are the benefits of such ongoing efforts?

► For ASIL, the opportunity to fulfill one of its core mandates, to promote the use and understanding of international law.

► For those of us working in international law, opportunities to connect and to re-connect with colleagues. But perhaps most importantly, it gives us all an opportunity to understand more broadly where international law is a factor in our communities and to know more of the people who now play active roles in its effective operation.

Information about the ASIL Midwest program is here.

If you’re an ASIL member interested in hosting a program in your area, please contact ASIL’s Sheila Ward at sward@asil.org, or me, Charlotte Ku, at chku@law.illinois.edu. We would be happy to work through programming ideas with you.

ASIL congrats to IntLawGrrls et al.

Delighted to note that a number of IntLawGrrls have just assumed responsibilities within the American Society of International Law:
► IntLawGrrl Hari M. Osofsky is a Co-Chair of the ASIL Annual Meeting Program Committee, as announced in this call for papers post. Hari joins Russ LaMotte and Allen Weiner in that role.
► IntLawGrrls Rebecca Bratspies, Hope Lewis, and Beth Van Schaack, along with IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Chimène Keitner, have been appointed members of the Annual Meeting Program Committee. Joining them are Angela Banks, Curtis Bradley, William Burns, Charles Camp, Anupam Chander, James Gathii, Celia Goldman, Katherine Gorove, Avril Haines, Eckhard Hellbeck, David Kaye, Lillian Aponte Miranda, Steve Pomper, Catherine Powell, Vikram Raghavan, Leila Nadya Sadat, and Natalya Scimeca.
►IntLawGrrl Susana SáCouto is now a member of ASIL's Honors Committee, chaired by Lucinda Lowe. Other members are Doak Bishop, John Cerone, Susan Franck, and Vaughan Lowe.
► Chairing the Awards Committee will be Paul Stephan, aided by members Daphne Barak-Erez, Mark Drumbl, Chiara Giorgetti, and Rob Sloane.
► Nominating Committee Chair is José Alvarez; members are Pieter Bekker, Charles Hunnicutt, Jane Stromseth, Adrien Wing, and Edith Brown Weiss.
► David Kaye and Cymie Payne will join Amy Porges as editors of ASIL Insights, taking up the work of departing editors David Fidler and IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Peggy McGuinness, also an ASIL Executive Council member.
► The women mentioned in boldface above join President Lucy Reed, Vice President Diane Marie Amann, and Executive Council members Janie Chuang and Stephanie Farrior, and Andrea K. Bjorklund as IntLawGrrls in ASIL leadership.

Heartfelt congratulations!

(And a hearty hat tip to Emil Dixon, 3d-year student at the University of California, Davis, School of Law, for designing IntLawGrrls' logo!)

Congratulations to new ASIL officers

In the wake of the hugely successful 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law in Washington, D.C., last week -- overheard, "full of substance, energy and buzz" -- ASIL Exec Director Betsy Andersen and I want to congratulate many, including several IntLawGrrls.
First, the hardworking and creative organizers of the 103rd Annual Meeting, namely:
► Co-chairs Steve Mathias (State Department), Anthea Roberts (London School of Economics), and Carlos Vázquez (Georgetown); and
► Program Committee members, Nehal Bhuta (Toronto), Tomer Broude (Georgetown), Oona Hathaway (California-Berkeley), Derek Jinks (Texas), Rick Johnson (Arnold & Porter), Russ LaMotte (Beveridge & Diamond), Frédéric Mégret (McGill), Andrea Menaker (White & Case), Dianne Otto (Melbourne), Vasuki Nesiah (Brown), Natalie Reid (Debevoise & Plimpton), Sandy Sivakumaran (Nottingham), Paul Stephan (Virginia), Ruth Teitelbaum, Allen Weiner (Stanford), and Gwen K. Young (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation).
Second, persons newly elected to ASIL leadership positions, namely:
► President-Elect David Caron (California-Berkeley) (left);
► Honorary President Thomas Franck (New York University);
► Vice Presidents, Diane Marie Amann (California-Davis), our IntLawGrrls founder, Dinah Shelton (George Washington), and Steve Mathias (State Department); and
► Executive Council members Catherine Amirfar (Debevoise & Plimpton), IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Andrea K. Bjorklund (California-Davis), Chris Borgen (St. John's), Olivia Swaak-Goldman (International Criminal Court), Kevin Gray (Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada), IntLawGrrls guest/alumna and Opinio Juris blogger Peggy McGuinness (Missouri), Greg Shaffer (Minnesota), and Abby Cohen Smutny (White & Case).
Third, the three persons who'll organize our 104th Annual Meeting, namely:
► The already hardworking and creative Co-Chairs, Russ LaMotte, IntLawGrrl Hari M. Osofsky, and Allen Weiner.
As Society President, I will be making more appointments in coming weeks and months. Details TK.

Go On! "International Dispute Resolution"

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia of interest) Current challenges to global resolution of disagreements will be explored in an all-day conference this Friday at my home institution, the University of California, Davis, School of Law. Entitled Overhauling International Dispute Resolution: Challenges & Potential Solutions to International Dispute Resolution in the 21st Century, the symposium will examine the following panel topics:
► The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes Revisited: Evaluating the Effectiveness of the 2006 Amendments to ICSID Arbitration Rules;
► Alternative Dispute Resolution and Corporate America: The Evolution of the Use of ADR Among Fortune 1000 Companies; and
► Lessons from International and Domestic Conflict Resolution: The New Face of Arbitration.
Chief sponsor of the conference is the law school's Journal of International Law & Policy, an Affiliate of our new California International Law Center at King Hall. Advising JILP editors are my colleagues, Afra Afsharipour and Andrea K. Bjorklund, herself an IntLawGrrls guest/alumna.
Conference details and brochure available here.

Go On! ASIL Leadership California Tour

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia of interest.) California international lawyers will be treated this week to visits from two leaders of the century-old, D.C.-based American Society of International Law: President Lucy Reed (below left), a partner at the New York office of the Freshfields law firm, member of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission, and IntLawGrrl, and Executive Director Elizabeth Andersen (below right). Coordinating the events is ASIL-West, the regional pilot project of which yours truly's a co-chair. Here's the itinerary:

Wednesday, October 1: Sacramento/Davis area

12 noon: Networking International Law, a lunchtime discussion with Lucy Reed and Betsy Andersen at the University of California Davis, School of Law (Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall). Cosponsored by the King Hall International Law Society.

6 p.m.: New Types of International Courts and Tribunals, dinner and discussion featuring Lucy Reed, Betsy Andersen, and Pacific McGeorge Law Professor Stephen C. McCaffrey; moderated by California-Davis Law Professor Andrea K. Bjorklund. At the University of California Davis, School of Law (Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall).

Thursday, October 2: San Francisco Bay Area

12:30 p.m.: Contemporary International Tribunals: From Investment Disputes to War Crimes, lunch discussion featuring Lucy Reed, at Stanford Law School, Palo Alto.

4:30 p.m.: Vice Presidential Debate Party. Begins with pre-debate foreign policy/international law panel featuring Lucy Reed, Betsy Andersen, and 3 former State Department officials now based in the Bay Area: William D. Kissinger, Abraham D. Sofaer, and Allen S. Weiner. Followed by dinner and viewing of debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, respectively, the GOP and Democratic nominees for Vice President. At Munger Tolles Olson law firm in San Francisco. Registration (required) here.

Friday, October 3: Los Angeles

11 a.m.: International Criminal Justice: Does It Work? Public lecture by Judge Theodor Meron of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia, with commentary by General Wesley K. Clark (ret.), former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, moderated by UCLA Law School's David Kaye, at that law school.

Saturday, October 4: Orange County

6 p.m.: Debating International Law Since 9/11: Principled & Pragmatic Controversies, lecture by Richard Falk, Betty & Wylie Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law, Chapman University School of Law, at that law school, located in Orange.

Details and registration for all events here.

Loewen, behold

This week marks the 12th anniversary of the initial jury verdict in the amount of $500 million handed down by a Mississippi state court against The Loewen Group, Inc. and Raymond L. Loewen.
Devotees of the television program Six Feet Under will recognize Loewen (pronounced LO-en) as a major Canadian funeral home operator, rivaled only by the former Texas giant SCI Corporation. Devotees of investor-State arbitration will recognize The Loewen Group Inc. & Raymond L. Loewen v. United States as the 1st case filed against the United States under the investment chapter of the North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA (logo at left), which took effect among Canada, Mexico, and the United States on January 1, 1994.
The Loewen case precipitated the formation of a new division within the Legal Adviser’s Office of the Department of State, which hired 5 attorneys to defend the United States against the claims in Loewen and the other cases that it seemed likely would follow. (Full disclosure: I was one of the 5, and I've written about the case here.) The United States won Loewen on what many argued were highly technical points that betrayed arbitrators more concerned about the political backlash should the United States lose a highly visible and contentious case rather than about awarding justice to a wronged Canadian company.
Notwithstanding these criticisms, the world of investor-State arbitration is thriving, with over 250 cases having been filed as of the end of 2006. The United States is indeed the defendant in several more cases, although its track record so far is perfect: it has prevailed in all cases that have so far gone to decision, and even won attorneys’ fees of several million dollars in the Methanex case.

Our 1st guest blogger: Andrea K. Bjorklund

It's a great pleasure to welcome IntLawGrrls' 1st guest blogger, Andrea K. Bjorklund (left). Author of today's post entitled "Loewen, behold," Andrea is an Acting Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis, School of Law (Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall), where she teaches and publishes in the areas of international arbitration and litigation, international trade, conflict of laws, and contracts. Her accomplishments before joining us in California includes serving as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State, where, as she mentions, she defended the United States in investor-State arbitrations brought under Chapter Eleven of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and as Senior Counsel to Commissioner Thelma J. Askey at the U.S. International Trade Commission.
Heartfelt thanks for your contribution, Andrea!