Go On! Transitional Justice for Darfur

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

A report entitled Toward Peace with Justice in Darfur: A Framework for Accountability will be launched this Wednesday, March 23, from 10 -11:30 a.m. at Tillar House, American Society of International Law, 2223 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. The report represents the culmination of the two-year Darfur Project partnership between the D.C.-based Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights and the California International Law Center at King Hall, University of California Davis, School of Law.
Envisioned by Dr. Mohammed Ahmed Abdallah Eisa (prior posts), Darfuri physician and recipient of the 2007 RFK Human Rights Award, and principally authored by yours truly, CILC Fellow Kathleen A. Doty, the report was prepared under the direction of RFK Human Rights Director Monika Kalra Varma, an IntLawGrrls guest/alumna, and CILC Director Diane Marie Amann, IntLawGrrl. Each of the four of us will speak at Wednesday's event.
The Toward Peace with Justice report provides a comprehensive analysis of the key transitional justice issues that will face the Darfuri people as they come to grips with past atrocities in Sudan. It is intended to be used as a tool to aid members of Darfuri civil society in determining which transitional justice mechanisms to implement.
Please join us for the launch. Space is limited, so please reserve your place to rsvp@rfkcenter.org.

Guest Blogger: Monika Kalra Varma

Honored to welcome Monika Kalra Varma (right) as IntLawGrrls' guest blogger today.
Monika is the Director of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights in Washington, D.C., where she develops and oversees programming, day-to-day operations, longterm strategies. (Prior IntLawGrrls posts.)
Since joining the center in 2002, she's spearheaded innovative economic and social rights advocacy, including efforts to hold international actors accountable for extraterritorial economic rights violations. Advocacy campaigns she's led have targeted the United Nations and its member states, various branches of the U.S. government, members of the Organization of American States and other regional bodies, international financial institutions, and corporations.
Monika serves on the editorial board of Health and Human Rights: An International Journal, published by the Harvard-based François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, and she is a steering committee member of the Lawyers Emergency Response Network for Haiti. She is also a member of the advisory board for the Global India Fund.
She speaks regularly with policymakers and members of civil society about domestic and international human rights issues, and has published commentary in, to name a few, the Boston Globe, the Guardian, the Huffington Post, and Jurist.
Today she contributes to IntLawGrrls. Monika's guest post below discusses her recent visit to Western Sahara as part of an RFK Center delegation -- a visit that produced a just-published report.
Prior to joining the RFK Center, Monika worked at The Hague. As a legal officer in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, she was a member of the trial team which secured the ICTY's first indictment and eventual conviction of the crime of terror. Accused, and eventually convicted, was General Stanislav Galić, the Serb military commander in Sarajevo from 1992-1994.
Monika earned her B.A. degree from the University of California, San Diego, and her J.D. from the University of California, Davis, School of Law. Indeed, I'm proud to say that she is a former student of mine, and the author while a student of a pathbreaking article, "Forced Marriage: Rwanda’s Secret Revealed," 7 University of California Davis Journal of International Law & Policy 197 (2001). We're been honored to name her a featured alumna on the website of our California International Law Center at King Hall, and also to work with her on the Darfur Project (described in posts available here) undertaken jointly between CILC and the RFK Center.
A truly heartfelt welcome!

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.

Go On! Goldstone @ Cal-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 Richard J. Goldstone (below right), on the topic of "International Criminal Justice: Its Successes and Failures," from 12 noon-1 p.m. this Thursday, February 10, here at the University of California, Davis, School of Law. Cohosting will be our students' International Law Society and Journal of International Law & Policy.
As blogreaders well know (prior posts), Goldstone has a remarkable record of service nationally and internationally, for example: Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa (1994-2003); Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (1994-1996); Chairperson of the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo; and Co-Chair of the International Task Force on Terrorism of the International Bar Association. His many publications include For Humanity: Reflections of a War Crimes Investigator (2000) and the coauthored International Judicial Institutions: The Architecture of International Justice at Home and Abroad (2008).
Details on Thursday's event are here.

ICC's Bensouda online

Delighted to announce that a webcast of International Women's Day appearance of Fatou Bensouda (left), Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, is now online.

Loyal blogreaders will recall that Bensouda made her 1st California visit a few weeks back, speaking at the University of California, Davis, School of Law (hosted by the California International Law Center at King Hall, for which I serve as Director) and the University of Santa Clara School of Law (hosted by the Center for Global Law & Policy, thanks to IntLawGrrl Beth Van Schaack and our colleague David Sloss). (photo credit)

While in Northern California, Bensouda also appeared on a news program at the Sacramento-based Capital Public Radio; the full interview is here, and a shorter audio clip here.

It's the CILC-hosted talk, entitled Gender Violence and International Criminal Law, that you can watch here.

Go On! ICC Deputy Prosecutor Bensouda to give Women's Day address in California

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest) It's an immense honor to announce the 1st-ever trip to California of the 2d-in-command at the Office of the Prosecution, International Criminal Court: ICC Deputy Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda (left and below right)will visit the home institutions of 2 IntLawGrrls, Beth Van Schaack and me, next week:
► On International Women's Day, the California International Law Center at King Hall, University of California, Davis, School of Law, for which I serve as founding Director, will host Bensouda's address on "Gender Violence and International Criminal Law" from 5 to 7 p.m. Monday, March 8, in our Moot Courtroom. Introducing her will be California Superior Court Judge Ramona J. Garrett, a 1980 King Hall alumna. Joining me in leading Q&A after the address will be California-Berkeley Law Professor David D. Caron, who's also President-Elect of the American Society of International Law.
► On the following day, Tuesday, March 9, from 12 noon to 1 p.m., Bensouda will speak at Santa Clara University School of Law. Details here.
Bensouda will discuss her work investigating and prosecuting persons accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes -- ranging from sexual violence to forced recruitment of child soldiers -- in wartorn places like Darfur, Democratic Republic Congo, Central African Republic, Guinea, and Uganda. Interviews with Bensouda about this work were featured (right) in The Reckoning (2009) (prior posts here and here), the documentary by IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Pamela Yates.
Before joining the ICC in 2004, Bensouda served as the Attorney General in her native country of The Gambia. She played key roles in negotiations at the United Nations and at the Economic Community of West African States. Bensouda's long advocacy for the rights of women led human rights groups to applaud her ICC appointment.
We're most grateful for support from the Planethood Foundation, established by Donald Ferencz, son of Nuremberg Prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz, to aid programs that promote international criminal justice.
Hope to see you at one of these events!

Go On! "The Asian Century?"

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest) Next Friday, February 26, the University of California, Davis Law Review will host "The Asian Century?," a conference exploring how the rise of Asia might bolster or hamper efforts to expand human capabilities. Experts will consider economic and human rights issues through the lens of their diverse areas of expertise, including multinational corporations, intellectual property, human rights, gay rights, the status of rural persons, national security law, and constitutional law. Cosponsoring the event is the California International Law Center, where I serve as Fellow.
Session topics include "Human Rights Under Stress," "The Concept of Asia in International Law," "Lost in Translation?." The symposium features a keynote address by Chicago Law Professor Martha Nussbaum (left); among those presenting papers will be 2 of IntLawGrrls' guests/alumnae, Afra Afsharipour and Lisa R. Pruitt.
The event is all day and free; details here.

Go On! Migrant Children

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

This Friday, February 5, the Journal of Juvenile Law and Policy and the Journal of International Law and Policy at the University of California, Davis, School of Law (Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall) will cohost "Uprooted: The International Migration of Children," a conference exploring the effects of immigration on youth and transnationalism among families. The symposium aims to examine both national and international convoluted legal webs affecting the transnational family. Cosponsoring the event is the California International Law Center at King Hall, for which yours truly serves as director.

Session topics include "The International Context that Pushes Migration," "Global Paths to the United States: The Migration Process," "Status in the United States."

The all-day event is free; details here.

On December 18

On this day in ...
... 1979 (30 years ago today), at U.N. headquarters in New York, by a vote of 130-0-10, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women at U.N. headquarters in New York City. The next summer, in Copenhagen, Denmark, 64 states signed and 2 ratified the Convention. On September 3, 1981, it entered into force, "faster than any previous human rights convention had done." It has 186 states parties, Qatar having joined in April "without any reservations." This, alas, has been less than common in the case of CEDAW, as this article indicates -- though Morocco withdrew its reservations last December. As for the United States, a nonparty state, a March 2009 Nation article by Betsy Reed framed the then-soon-expected debate on U.S. ratification of the Women's Convention:

Will the Obama administration, and Senate Democrats, bow to pressure from antiabortion Republicans and include ... conditions in this year's version, in a bid to ensure passage? Or will they push for a 'clean CEDAW,' as many feminists are urging? Senator Barbara Boxer, who heads the relevant Foreign Relations subcommittee, has pledged to begin hearings with a clean version of the treaty,
but pressure will quickly mount to muck it up.

(credit for Lisa Bennett photo of 2000 pro-CEDAW demonstration in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the National Organization for Women) Classes having ended for the semester, we at the California International Law Center at King Hall, University of California, Davis, School of Law, will be marking the anniversary with a noon-hour event on Thursday, January 28: "The Women's Convention at 30." Featured will be Krishanti Dharmaraj (right) -- who successfully persuaded the Board of Supervisors to make San Francisco the 1st "city in the United States to pass legislation implementing an international human rights treaty," CEDAW -- as well as members of our CILC Faculty Council, like Afra Afsharipour, Lisa Ikemoto, IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Lisa R. Pruitt, and Madhavi Sunder.

(Prior December 18 posts are here and here.)

Darfur in D.C. today

"Toward a Comprehensive Strategy for Sudan" is the title of today's hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The session begins at 10 Eastern time this morning at 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, and should also be available on webcast and C-SPAN.
Scheduled witnesses include Dr. Mohammed Ahmed (left), a Darfuri physician and peacemaker who's been honored as a Human Rights Laureate by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights. Earlier this year Dr. Mohammed visited the California International Law Center at King Hall, of which yours truly is director, to meet with students working on our ongoing joint RFK-CILC Darfur Project on transitional justice.
Also set to testify before the Foreign Relations Committee are: retired Air Force Major General Scott Gration, the President's Special Envoy to Sudan; Earl Gast, Acting Assistant Administrator for Africa at the U.S. Agency for International Development; Dr. David Shinn, former Ambassador to Burkina Faso and to Ethiopia, and now an Adjunct Professor in international affairs at George Washington University; and Susan Page (right), formerly head of the Rule of Law program for the U.N. Mission in Sudan and now Regional Director for Southern and East Africa Programs for the National Democratic Institute.
The hearing provides an occasion for review of recent developments respecting Sudan (prior IntLawGrrls posts). For example:
► Earlier this month, a 5-member arbitration tribunal issued its resolution of a boundary dispute between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army, respecting the Abyei Area in South Sudan. Some in the south are said to have warned they may appeal the decision, which drew a line through the oil-rich region.
► Respecting the western region of Darfur, the indictment by the International Criminal Court of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir continues to stir controversy. Via a resolution at the African Union summit earlier this month, many leaders rallied on Bashir's behalf and railed against the ICC and its Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. But just this week, Bashir was a no-show at an African summit in Uganda. Reports are that Bashir's scheduled visit was "blocked" by President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, an ICC member state. The move follows the apparent notice to Bashir that he might face arrest if he attended the inauguration of South African President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, also an ICC member state. Yet the policy of Zuma's government remains unclear. And as our Opinio Juris colleague Kevin Jon Heller's noted, Botswana's said it would adhere to its ICC obligations if the indictee entered its jurisdiction.
► Some maintain that it's not only Africa that's in disarray, but that the same could be said of Sudan policy in the United States. Last month Gration said "that the Sudanese government is no longer engaging in a 'coordinated' campaign of mass murder in Darfur," but rather what's occurring now is "' the remnants of genocide.'" The Washington Post's Colum Lynch saw in the remarks evidence of "an emerging rift between Gration and Susan E. Rice [below right], the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who accused the Sudanese leadership of genocide as recently as two days ago." An op-ed writer agreed. In testimony yesterday at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on peacekeeping, however, Rice spoke favorably of Gration's mission; her focus was pressing Sudan to allow more aid workers into Darfur. Her prepared statement included these words:

Darfur is about the size of California, with a pre-war population of 6.5 million. Only twenty thousand peacekeepers are inherently limited in their ability to patrol territory so vast, and to protect so many civilians. Imagine how much more difficult their task becomes when the host government actively hinders their efforts, the parties balk at cease-fire talks, and the peacekeepers are deployed below their full operating capacity.

Bottom line:The Committee's Senators will have much to talk about today.

Congrats to IntLawGrrl Kathleen Doty

Am honored to announce the appointment of IntLawGrrl Kathleen Doty (left) as the inaugural Fellow of the California International Law Center at King Hall (CILC), University of California, Davis, School of Law.
Author of yesterday's post on the California Supreme Court's ruling on Proposition 8, as well as other posts concentrating on human rights and global health policy, Kathleen will begin her fellowship this fall after finishing her clerkship with a judge on the Hawai`i Intermediate Court of Appeals.
As the CILC Fellow she will give invaluable scholarly and administrative help to the Center, launched this past February with yours truly as founding Director (prior posts). CILC aims to foster the work of California-Davis faculty, students, and alumni in international, comparative, and transnational law, through speakers’ series and conferences, curricular and career development. Key components are our partnerships, among them our Darfur Project undertaken with the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.
Kathleen is eminently qualified for the position, having excelled in international legal studies while in law school. In 2008, the same year she earned her J.D. from California-Davis, she:
► served as both coach and advocate for the Jessup International Moot Court Team, which advanced to international rounds in Washington, D.C.; and
► was honored as 1st runner-up in the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association Michael Greenberg Student Writing Competition for an article just published as From Fretté to E.B.: The European Court of Human Rights on Gay and Lesbian Adoption, 18 Law & Sexuality 121 (2009), at "Global Arc of Justice: Sexual Orientation Law Around the World," a conference convened by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law and the International Lesbian and Gay Law Association.
She was graduated cum laude from Smith College with a major in Latin American Studies and a minor in Film Studies. Fluent in Spanish and proficient in French, she worked with community organizations in the Hispanic and French Caribbean, and studied abroad at La Universidad de la Habana in Cuba. She is a founding member of the Hawai’i Lesbian and Gay Legal Association.
Heartfelt congratulations!

Call for regional approach to Darfur

Often "Darfur" appears as some disembodied phenomenon -- a crisis out of context.
In fact, of course, the word is shorthand for a complex, multiyear, multilayered conflict. Violence occurs not in some stand-alone time and space, but rather against the backdrop of issues that span all of Sudan.
Even this broad a view is too narrow. Just as violence in Darfur must be considered within the context of Sudan, troubles in Sudan must be considered within the context of the northern/eastern quadrant of Africa.
Thus in "Beyond Band-Aids for Darfur," a Huffington Post op-ed, our colleague Monika Kalra Varma recently argued:

A strong U.S. special envoy to Sudan, Major General Scott Gration, has been named, sending a message to Khartoum, but an equally strong message must be sent to Chad. The new administration must entrust Maj. Gen. Gration with a broad mandate to confront the interrelated problems in both Sudan and Chad to find regional solutions for peace, similar to the current approach to Pakistan and Afghanistan. He must be able to deal with all actors in the region, including not only governments and rebels, but also tribal, civil society, refugee and IDP leaders.

This call for a regional approach by Varma, Director for the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights, reflects a policy paper that the RFK Center issued during the recent U.S. visits of 2 of its Human Rights Laureates, Delphine Djiraibe, a Chadian attorney and human rights advocate, and Dr. Mohammed Ahmed Abdallah, a Darfuri physician. (Am honored to note that among the places that Dr. Mohammed Ahmed visited was the California International Law Center at King Hall, University of California, Davis, School of Law, where he gave a public talk and met privately with the 40-plus students who are taking part in a CILC-RFK partnership aimed at developing a framework for peace and reconciliation processes.) Entitled "The Need for a Regional Approach to Solve the Crisis in Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic," the paper notes the sad statistics respecting deaths and displacement in Darfur, and stresses that the negative consequences of conflict cross borders into Chad and Central African Republic. Accordingly, the paper contends, peace negotiations must engage all 3 countries. Such negotiations, moreover, must bring to the table not only the government and rebels, but also tribal and other leaders in civil society.
A key component of any such effort, both Varma's op-ed and the policy paper maintain, is U.S. expansion of the special envoy's mandate to assure that Darfur is considered in comprehensive context.

(credit for 2007 BBC regional map)

Someone give Kristof the U.N. Charter

A recent column by New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof included the following paragraph:

President Obama could also announce that from now on, when Sudan violates the U.N. ban on offensive military flights in Darfur by bombing villagers, we will afterward destroy a Sudanese military aircraft on the ground in Darfur (we can do this from our base in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa).

Huh?

Kristof deserves credit for his columns, which repeatedly pique public consciousness -- and consciences -- about human rights violations in the 3d World and, on occasion, here at home. But paragraphs like that quoted above sap his efforts.

As all international lawyers know, for a country to enter another's air space and destroys its property likely violate the pledge, contained in Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter, that it shall

refrain in [its] international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

The Charter expressly exempts from this ban uses of force that:

► qualify as individual or collective self-defense meeting all requirements of Article 51 of the Charter (requirements that guest/alumna Valerie Epps analyzed in her recent post); or

► are sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council pursuant to Chapter VII of the Charter.

Neither exception would cover the scenario that Kristof proposes:

► Self-defense does not apply for the simple reason that Darfur is not a U.N. member state; it represents yet another tragic example of a state attacking its own populace.

► There seems almost no chance that all 5 permanent members of the Security Council would vote to authorize the use of force.

One presumes that Kristof -- or whoever suggested this scenario to him -- is operating on the assumption that such a U.S. military foray could be justified as an exercise of humanitarian intervention or its younger sibling, responsibility to protect. Put to one side the fact that just because a state can do something does not mean that it should. Put to one side as well the fact that taking out a Sudanese military jet seems far more like old-fashioned reprisal than an act promising to advance a humanitarian goal. The core legal problem is that no international law -- no customary norm, no treaty provision -- allows either humanitarian intervention or intervention in service of a responsibility to protect. Even commentators favorable to articulation of such a law often limit its scope to genocide, and, rightly or not, both a U.N. Commission of Inquiry and a panel of the International Criminal Court have refused to label the horrors in Darfur genocide.

There seems little doubt that other international offenses -- crimes against humanity and war crimes -- have occurred in Darfur. (map credit) No doubt, then, that the crisis in Darfur deserves all our best efforts. That's why the 1st venture of our California International Law Center at King Hall, UC Davis School of Law, is to partner with the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights to craft a framework for peace and reconciliation in that troubled region of Sudan. (See here and here.)

But those who argue for unauthorized military strikes do not make use of best efforts.

Rather than urge yet another American President to order unilateral military action, humanitarians ought to push for collective solutions achieved within the bounds of law.

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.

On February 12

On this day in ...
... 1809 (200 years ago today), 2 men of lasting renown were born. 1st, in Shrewsbury, England, Charles Darwin (left) was born into a wealthy family -- his mother was from the Wedgwood porcelain clan, and his father was a doctor and financier. Interested in natural science from a young age, Darwin served from 1831 to 1836 "as naturalist aboard the H.M.S. Beagle on a British science expedition around the world." His discoveries, particularly those on the Galapagos Islands, led to his development of a theory of evolution and publication of the landmark The Origin of Species (1859). Here you can find Darwin's complete works online. 2d, on the same day, thousands of miles away, in rural Hardin County, Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln was born. His White House web bio quotes Lincoln's own account of his origins:

'My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families -- second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks.... My father ... removed from Kentucky to ... Indiana, in my eighth year.... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.... Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher ... but that was all.'

He'd go on, of course, to become the 16th U.S. President, credited inter alia with vanquishing the Southern states' rebellion (at times using means that curtailed civil liberties, as we've posted here and here and here), issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, and commissioning the Lieber Code, a compilation of the laws and customs of war that influenced international instruments like the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

... 1909 (100 years ago today), in New York, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People launched its 1st civil rights campaign. The date was no accident. A cofounder, Mary White Ovington (below right), wrote on the NAACP's 5th anniversary:

Of course, we wanted to do something at once that should move the country. It was January. Why not choose Lincoln's birthday, February 12, to open our campaign? We decided, therefore, that a wise, immediate action would be the issuing on Lincoln's birthday of a call for a national conference on the Negro question.

To publicize the decision, she wrote, organizers issued a call that began:

'The celebration of the Centennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, widespread and grateful as it may be, will fail to justify itself if it takes no note of and makes no recognition of the colored men and women for whom the great Emancipator labored to assure freedom. Besides a day of rejoicing, Lincoln's birthday in 1909 should be one of taking stock of the nation's progress since 1865.
'How far has it lived up to the obligations imposed upon it by the Emancipation Proclamation? How far has it gone in assuring to each and every citizen, irrespective of color, the equality of opportunity and equality before the law, which underlie our American institutions and are guaranteed by the Constitution?'

As Dr. Clayborne Carson underscored in his superb February 4th address launching the California International Law Center at King Hall, UC Davis School of Law, these questions linger 100 years later.

California International Law Center launch

This Wednesday will mark yet another inauguration -- that is, the Inaugural Celebration of the California International Law Center at King Hall, the newest initiative of my home institution, the University of California, Davis, School of Law. Am proud to say that Dean Kevin R. Johnson has named yours truly founding Director of the Center, which we've short-named CILC (pronounced "silk").
Our February 4 noon-hour kickoff, cosponsored by the Black Law Students Association and the International Law Society, will feature a very special program (tape to be posted at our new website). 1st, opening remarks from Kevin and me. Then we'll hear about the Global Vision & Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., from Dr. Clayborne Carson (left), Professor of History and founding Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, and editor of the King papers. Dr. Carson will talk from an international perspective about the namesake of our law school, Dr. King, who in 1964 became the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and who later invoked international law to explain his opposition to the Vietnam War.
Indeed, in a speech delivered 7 years before the Peace Prize, King himself linked civil rights at home to human rights abroad. He asked:

As we move to make justice a reality on the international scale, as we move to make justice a reality in this nation, how will the struggle be waged?

Events, projects, and programs of CILC will work toward answers:
► The new Center's already cosponsored -- along with the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas and College of Letters & Sciences at the University of California, Davis, the International Justice Network, New York, and the National Litigation Project at Yale Law School -- a 2-day exploratory discussion concerning a commission of inquiry to examine U.S. detention policies and practices after September 11, 2001.
► And CILC's already partnered with the the 40-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights, to help drafting a framework for peace and reconciliation in Darfur. More later on this Darfur Project, to which a host of guest lecturers also are contributing teir time and expertise.
Wish us well as we endeavor to meet the challenge posed by Dr. King.

(A grateful hat tip to Legal History Blog for posting on our new Center)