Guest Blogger: Erin Daly

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Erin Daly (left) as today's guest blogger.
Erin is Professor of Law and Associate Dean of Faculty Research and Development at Widener Law School in Wilmington, Delaware. She earned her B.A. from Wesleyan University and her J.D. cum laude from the University of Michigan, then practiced 1st Amendment and employment law at the San Francisco law firm of Cooper White & Cooper.
Since entering academia in 1993, she's produced many publications on comparative environmental law, constitutional law, and transitional justice, among them Reconciliation in Divided Societies: Finding Common Ground (2006), for which a Nobel Peace Prizewinner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, wrote the foreword. Co-authoring the book (issued in paperback in 2010) with Erin was Jeremy Sarkin, the South African legal expert about whom we posted yesterday.
Erin has served as a Vice-Chair of the Young Lawyer’s Division Law and Media Committee of the American Bar Association. Earlier this month, Erin was elected the Chair of the Section on International Human Rights of the Association of American Law Schools (a position that IntLawGrrl Christiana Ochoa held a while back). In her guest post below, Erin recaps the Section's "new voices" programs during AALS' 2010 annual meeting, discusses Section plans, and welcomes suggestions for the coming year.
Erin dedicates her post to Coretta Scott King (1927-2006), about whom we IntLawGrrls have frequently posted. She was, of course, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (prior posts) -- and she was also a civil rights and human rights activist in her own right. Today the United States observes Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. It is, as Erin writes, a holiday that Coretta Scott King

named in honor of her husband, but which is really a testament to her own lifelong commitment to making the world a better place through service to others and to holding up ideals of equality and human dignity, whether in the context of literacy, poverty eradication, or the rights of minorities of all kinds in the United States and abroad. She took on each new challenge with grace and intelligence and continued throughout her life to push for greater rights for all.

(source for 1984 Charles Tasnadi/AP photo of her leading a picket of South African embassy in Washington, D.C.) Today we are honored to include Coretta Scott King in our list of foremothers just below the "visiting from..." map at right.

Heartfelt welcome!

Child marriage, abroad & at home

Pending in the U.S. House of Representatives is a bill to combat child marriage around world.
The International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2010 (S. 987) unanimously passed the Senate 11 days ago. The bill finds, inter alia:

Child marriage, also known as 'forced marriage' or 'early marriage', is a harmful traditional practice that deprives girls of their dignity and human rights.

and:

Child marriage as a traditional practice, as well as through coercion or force, is a violation of article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, 'Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of intending spouses'.

Citing the frequency with which under-18 girls (girls in particular, though elsewhere the bill mentions boys, too) marry, in countries like "Niger, Chad, Mali, Bangladesh, Guinea, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, and Nepal," the bill would:
► Authorize the U.S. President to work with "multilateral, nongovernmental, and faith-based organizations" to develop a child-marriage-prevention strategy that includes "education, health, income generation, changing social norms, human rights, and democracy building"; and
► Require that information about the nature and prevalence of child marriage be included in the annual Country Reports published by the U.S. Department of State.
No word on when such legislation might be taken up in the House.
Movement in that direction received a notable boost last week, in a Washington Post op-ed published jointly by Mary Robinson (right), formerly the President of Ireland and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa, and winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. Members of The Elders group established by former the South African President and Nobel Peace Prizewinner, the 2 wrote:

As members of an independent group of leaders who were asked by Nelson Mandela to use our influence to address major causes of human suffering, we have never been involved in supporting a specific piece of legislation before, but we believe that investing in efforts to prevent child marriage is critical to global development and the achievement of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. We applaud the Senate for passing this forward-looking legislation and urge the House of Representatives to follow suit.

Against the backdrop of these recent legislative efforts, an item discovered in the Library of Congress archives jumped out.
A captivating account of early 20th C. "women's editions" published by the mainstream U.S. press included the Louisville Courier-Journal clipping at left, entitled "Black List of States". Listed was the legal limit "at which fathers, brothers, and husbands have placed the age at which a little girl may consent to her ruin" -- that is, the age at which she could become a child bride in the United States.
In all but 3 states (Colorado, Kansas, and Wyoming), the age was under 18.
The youngest age of legal consent?
7 years, in Delaware.
The date?
1895, just 53 years before adoption of the Universal Declaration to which the pending legislation refers.

On June 24

On this day in ...
... 1995 (15 years ago today), world leaders gathered in San Francisco to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the post-World War II conference that ended with the signing of the U.N. Charter on June 26, 1945. A San Francisco Chronicle article published on this day attributed the Charter's opening, "We the Peoples," to drafters' desire to

inspire people to support the United Nations and help the charter last, as it has for a half-century.

Among the world leaders wide awake in the wee hours of that San Francisco morning was Archbishop Desmond Tutu, whom live Johannesburg TV showed celebrating at an Irish pub with Ireland-born Maggie King and other South Africans as they watched South Africa win the Rugby World Cup -- playing on its home field in its 1st such international tournament since the end of apartheid. Hours later Maggie, whose mother is the subject of a prior post, celebrated again -- this time below a mast flying the Jolly Roger and a plaque honoring Harry Bridges at the Fishermen’s and Seamen’s Memorial Chapel (left), for the marriage of her brother, Peter O'Neill, to yours truly at bayside midsummer nuptials pictured here. It was, according to the Chron, the hottest day of San Francisco's century. The following 15 years, equally magical!

(Prior June 24 posts here, here, and here.)

'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

I recognize that Arizona has become a widening entry point for illegal immigration from the South. The wave has brought with it rising violence and drug smuggling.
But a solution that degrades innocent people, or that makes anyone with broken English a suspect, is not a solution. A solution that fails to distinguish between a young child coming over the border in search of his mother and a drug smuggler is not a solution. . .
Abominations such as apartheid do not start with an entire population suddenly becoming inhumane. They start here. They start with generalizing unwanted characteristics across an entire segment of a population. They start with trying to solve a problem by asserting superior force over a population. They start with stripping people of rights and dignity - such as the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty - that you yourself enjoy. Not because it is right, but because you can. And because somehow, you think this is going to solve a problem.
However, when you strip a man or a woman of their basic human rights, you strip them of their dignity in the eyes of their family and their community, and even in their own eyes. An immigrant who is charged with the crime of trespassing for simply being in a community without his papers on him is being told he is committing a crime by simply being. He or she feels degraded and feels they are of less worth than others of a different color skin. These are the seeds of resentment, hostilities and in extreme cases, conflict.

-- Bishop Desmond Tutu, in an editorial in last week's Huffington Post, discussing Arizona's harsh new immigration law (prior post) -- a fitting reflection on this Cinco de Mayo.

A Tribute to Helen Suzman

Helen Suzman, a lion of the anti-apartheid movement, died peacefully at her home in Johannesburg yesterday at the age of 91. South Africa's flags will fly at half-mast on Sunday to mourn her passing, a fitting tribute to an "indomitable" and "stroppy" "powerhouse against apartheid", in the words of Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. Suzman, a member of South Africa's Parliament from the wealthy Johannesburg district of Houghton from 1953 until 1989, used her position to fight tirelessly against apartheid, often as a sole dissenting voice -- the "cricket in the thorn tree", as she was known. She served thirteen years as the sole liberal MP, six of those as the only female amongst 165 male MPs. Despite these daunting circumstances, Suzman continually stood up for justice and equality:

Helen's reputation was built not on lofty thoughts and resounding speeches, but on hard work. One by one, as they came off the assembly line, she shredded the bills that removed civil liberties. One by one, she tore her parliamentary colleagues apart for their callousness, ignorance and ineptitude. Day after day, she would meet the poor, either in her office, or more often in their own shacks, listening to their tales of sorrow and sadness, of hurt and hatred.

With typical chutzpah, she would accost ministers in the parliamentary lobby or beard police officers in their dens, and demand to know why some nameless person of colour was being deprived of his or her rights.

In Suzman's own words, "I am provocative, and I admit this. It isn't as if I'm only on the receiving end, a poor, frail little creature. I can be thoroughly nasty when I get going, and I don't pull my punches." The world will be a poorer place without those punches, though Suzman's fighting spirit will continue to inspire us to speak out against injustice and agitate for change.

'Nuff said

(Occasional item taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes.)

"Whoever imagined that you would hear from the United States and from Britain the same arguments for detention without trial that were used by the apartheid government?"

-- Desmond Tutu (above), South African archbishop and 1984 Nobel Peace Prizewinner.