On December 29, ...

... 1893, Vera Brittain was born at Newcastle-under-Lyme, England. When World War I broke out, she urged her brother and his best friend, with whom she'd fallen in love, to enlist. Even before both were killed in that conflict, Brittain began to turn away from war and toward pacifism. In 1993, she published her memoir of that time, Testament of Youth. She has been an inspiration to IntLawGrrl Elizabeth Hillman.
... 1972 (35 years ago today), a 5-year moratorium that had been placed on executions in Canada ended. In that period support for the death penalty seemed to have increased. By a narrow vote the country abolished capital punishment in 1976. The penalty continues in Canada's neighbor to the south, of course, although abolition by New Jersey just this month (the global consequences of which our Opinio Juris colleague Peggy McGuinness posted here and here) reduced the number of U.S. retentionist jurisdictions to 38 -- 37 states plus the federal government -- though compared with prior years there were fewer executions in 2007. A reporter's even envisioned what a United States without the death penalty would look like.

Hot Off the Presses

Heartfelt congratulations to IntLawGrrls' own Connie de la Vega (below), who joins 2 other IntLawGrrls, Elizabeth Hillman and Beth Van Schaack, as authors of just-published books.
Connie's contribution is International Human Rights Law (2007).
Along with co-author David Weissbrodt, she's produced what the publisher, University of Pennsylvania Press, calls "a comprehensive introductory treatise, intended for all concerned about this critical area of international law, including students, lawyers, other advocates, teachers, and academics." Within the book's 3 sections may be found:

► Discussions of the development of human rights as a field within international law;

► Summaries of each rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent instruments; and
► Examination of national, regional, and international implementation processes.

You go, 'Grrl!

Hot Off the Presses

Kudos to Elizabeth L. Hillman -- IntLawGrrls' own Vera Brittain -- who's just published Military Justice: Cases and Materials (LexisNexis 2007). Beth, who's a visiting professor this year at University of California, Hastings College of the Law, wrote the text along with our colleagues Eugene R. Fidell, President of the National Institute of Military Justice, and Dwight H. Sullivan, Colonel, Marine Corps Reserve, who headed defense of detainees haled before the military commissions at Guantánamo.
The publishers' description underscores the place of military justice within the larger study of systems of justice:

With prosecutions arising from the abuse at Abu Ghraib to ongoing cases alleging atrocities against civilians in Iraq, as well as courts-martial of uniformed war resisters at home, the military justice system now has a prominence unmatched since the Vietnam era. This higher profile for court-smartial, combined with the difficult and fundamental legal issues raised by the military commissions, suggests that military courses will now be in great demand. This casebook['s] coverage of the U.S. court-martial and other national and international systems of military criminal law provides a framework through which students can explore the role and operation of military justice within a democratic society.

Heartfelt congratulations!