Long way to go in legal academy

Old enough to remember when legal citations eschewed the author's 1st name in favor of 1st initial only?
That style served to obscure the lopsidedness of the legal academy: virtually all the names lurking behind A., B., and C. were men. The mask's largely been lifted, so that each of us today cites in full consciousness of whom we are citing, man or woman. I suspect the change has had good effects, not least among them recognition that women as well as men contribute their voices to this generation of legal scholarship.
Thus even as I celebrated the news that my home institution, the University of California, Davis, School of Law (Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall) is among the Top 25 Law Faculties in Scholarly Impact according to a just-published 2005-2009 survey, I could not but raise a curious eyebrow at the decision of number-cruncher extraordinaire Brian Leiter (prior IntLawGrrls posts here and here) to list the 10 most-cited members of each law faculty by the equation of initial + surname.
A look underneath the veil of that device revealed much:
► In none of the top 25 schools were more than 4 women among the top 10 most-cited scholars, and only 3 of the 25 earned even that scarcely heart-warming 40% rate.
► Double that number -- fully 6 law schools -- do not have a single woman among their top 10 most-cited.
The rest ranged from 1 to 3 women out of 10.
Proud to say that among the women receiving top recognition are 2 IntLawGrrls, Naomi Cahn and yours truly, as well as a number of others whom we've featured in posts: not only my California-Davis colleague Madhavi Sunder, but also Kimberlé Crenshaw, Martha Albertson Fineman, Vicki Jackson, Pamela Karlan, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Martha Minow (left), Rachel Moran, Catharine MacKinnon (bottom left), Martha Nussbaum, Margaret Jane Radin, and Dinah Shelton.
Proud too to see on the list a close law school classmate, Kirsten H. Engel, as well as the only woman professor I had in law school, Carol M. Rose.
Can't help, though, but be concerned about the dearth of women on this list (reflective, no doubt, of the proportion in the academy as a whole, an issue that my deans, Kevin Johnson and Vik Amar, tackle in this new column on need for faculty diversity).
And can't help harbor concern about the fact that not 1 woman is on Brian's list of Ten Most Cited Faculty 2005-2009; indeed, the list drops a full 660 citations to get to the 1st woman (Kathleen Sullivan) below the 10th man (Bruce Ackerman).
In short, still a very long way to go.

Here's the roundup, with 1st as well as last name provided in full:

Most women among top 10 (4 each):
► Arizona (ranked #21): Jean Braucher, Kirsten H. Engel, Toni Massaro, Carol M. Rose (#10 most-cited woman)
► California-Irvine (#9): Catherine Fisk, Elizabeth Loftus, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Rachel Moran
► Michigan (#11): Rebecca Eisenberg, Jessica Litman, Catharine MacKinnon (#4 most-cited woman), Margaret Jane Radin (#7 most-cited woman)

Next most -- 3 women among top 10:
► Georgetown (#20): Julie Cohen, Vicki Jackson, Robin West
► Stanford (#4): Pamela Karlan, Deborah Rhode (#3 most-cited woman), Kathleen Sullivan (#1 most-cited woman)
► UCLA (#15): Kimberlé Crenshaw, Katherine Stone, Lynn Stout
► Vanderbilt (#10): Margaret Blair, Nancy King, Suzanna Sherry

Next next-most -- 2 women among top 10:
► California-Davis (#23): Diane Marie Amann, Madhavi Sunder
► Chicago (#3): Lisa Bernstein, Martha Nussbaum (#5 most-cited woman)
► Emory (#23): Martha Albertson Fineman, Barbara Bennett Woodhouse
► George Washington (#18): Naomi Cahn, Dinah Shelton
► Northwestern (#8): Lee Epstein, Dorothy E. Roberts

Only 1 woman among top 10:
► California-Berkeley (#7): Pamela Samuelson
► Columbia (#6): Jane Ginsburg
► Cornell (#11): Valerie Hans
► Harvard (#2): Martha Minow (#2 most-cited woman)
► Illinois (#21): Cynthia Williams
► Penn (#14): Jill Fisch
► Yale (#1): Reva Siegel (#5 most-cited woman)

Not even 1 woman among top 10:
► Duke (#11)
► Florida State (#23)
► Minnesota (#19)
► NYU (#5)
► Texas (#17)
► Virginia (#16)

Perhaps 'nuff said, but thoughts welcome.

Iraq on the couch

Iraq on the SOFA, is more like it.
SOFA, of course, is the acronym for Status of Forces Agreement, the generic term for a pact concluded between a country wishing to send its troops to a foreign land and a country that’s willing to receive foreign troops.
Governments in the United States and Iraq are about to implement a pact designed to define relations between the 2 countries for the next 3 years. Media have referred to the pact as a SOFA, and the text available here does include the expected provisions; for example, one setting forth which country has primary jurisdiction over which persons in the event a criminal case arises. (Private contractors are destined to lose immunity from Iraqi jurisdiction.) This pact is more than an ordinary SOFA, however, as its full name belies:
Agreement Between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq On the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq and the Organizations of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq.
Indeed, it is Article 24, “Withdrawal of the United States Forces from Iraq,” that provokes perhaps the widest interest. Article 24 specifies that U.S. forces -- which invaded Iraq, leading a “coalition of the willing,” in March 2003 – “shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011.” Withdrawal from parts of the country is to occur much sooner:

All United States combat forces shall withdraw from Iraqi cities, villages, and localities no later than the time at which Iraqi Security Forces assume full responsibility for security in an Iraqi province, provided that such withdrawal is completed no later than June 30, 2009.

On November 17, the 2 states’ executive officers subscribed to this speedy timetable, along with the rest of the pact. There is a proviso, however; each state’s government must secure domestic approval.
In the United States, criticism has been muted (though not entirely absent; Tom Hayden colorfully called the pact Frankenstein in Mesopotamia). The Administration of President George W. Bush managed to quell debate by resort to a “sole executive agreement” – a pact that the President concludes with another country and without having to secure the approval of Congress. (Our colleague Frederic L. Kirgis has posted a most helpful international-agreements primer here.) But that decision in itself drew criticism. Indeed, law professors Oona Hathaway (right) and Bruce Ackerman have argued here and here that the Constitution requires Congress’ input for this kind of pact – either the OK of both Houses or the advice and consent of 2/3 of the Senate. Hathaway reiterated her objections at the Northern California International Law Scholars’ roundtable earlier this month. Pointing in particular to the pact's abrogation of contractor immunity, she maintained that if U.S. officials had negotiated the pact with the knowledge that they would have to “sell it to Congress,” the result would have been better. In her view, the lack of any need to get an OK at home “made them weaker, not stronger.”
In Iraq, debate was both more widespread and more heated. Last month “tens of thousands” of Iraqi protesters marched to the Baghdad square where, years earlier, another crowd famously toppled statue of Saddam Hussein. There, “to denounce” the pact, they “dragged down … an effigy of President Bush.” “A fistfight broke out in Iraq's parliament,” NPR reported. Soon, however, Iraq legislators approved the pact, by a vote of 149 to 35, with 14 members abstaining and another 77 absent for the vote. Iraq completed its internal adoption process on December 4, when the 3-member Presidential Council approved the pact.

Along with a similar resolution pertaining to British and other non-U.S. troops, the pact thus takes effect tomorrow, New Year’s Day.

The U.N. mandate authorizing foreign troop presence expires, like this year, at midnight.

(With thanks to California-Davis law student Veronica Capron, whose research interest in this pact piqued my own)