Black Women Teaching International Law (U.S.)

Quick! Name the Black women who teach international, comparative, foreign relations, or immigration/asylum law at U.S. law schools!
A friend asked me this awhile back, but I realize now that it should be an impossible task. There should be far too many to name in a single blogpost.
It’s like asking someone to name the women in international law. We couldn’t possibly provide a comprehensive response to any such request, but IntLawGrrls includes many such voices here. See posts on
--women who are experts on international law;
--women who participated in recent meetings or the leadership of the American Society of International Law;
--or the many regular contributors and guest bloggers on IntLawGrrls.com (see list at right). Still, not enough women in international law.
The field has made some progress in the inclusion of African-American and other Black women since people like the late Professor Goler Teal Butcher, an IntLawGrrls foremother, opened new paths. (See, e.g., Henry J. Richardson, Tribute: African-Americans in International Law: for Professor Goler Teal Butcher, 37 Howard Law Journal 21 (1994) and Hope Lewis, ed., Blacks in U.S. Foreign Policy: A Retrospective (TransAfrica Forum, 1987).
Still, we “have promises to keep,/And miles to go before (we) sleep.”
I will likely inadvertently omit some obvious names, but one must begin somewhere...So, here’s a start. I hope that readers will add names in the comment section or contact me directly with updates so that there can be a “part II” (and, someday, an impossibly long list).
Special thanks to Dr. Jeremy Levitt, who organized a roundtable: “Toward an International Law of Black Women: New Theory, New Praxis” co-sponsored by ASIL and the Florida A & M University College of Law in March. Thanks as well to members of the Association of American Law Schools Minority Law Professors’ List-serv for their suggestions. Of course, this list does not include non-Global Law fields in which these scholars teach, so I've linked to their bio pages for the full story.
Adjoa A. Aiyetoro, (photo, right) Associate Professor of Law, William H. Bowen School of Law, University of Arkansas, Little Rock (International Human Rights Law, Reparations)
Michele Alexandre (photo, left), Associate Professor of Law, University of Mississippi School of Law (International Human Rights Law)
Rachel J. Anderson (photo, left), Associate Professor of Law, William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (International Law, International Human Rights, International Business Transactions), an IntLawGrrls guest/alumna.
Penelope E. Andrews (photo, below right), Professor of Law and incoming Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law (International Human Rights Law (including critical approaches to gender and race/intersectionality)) (Her IntLawGrrls guest posts are here.)
Angela M. Banks (photo, right), Assistant Professor of Law, William & Mary Law School (International Law, Immigration Law, Human Rights Law, Gender and Human Rights)
Taunya Lovell Banks (photo, left), Jacob A. France Professor of Equality Jurisprudence and Francis & Harriet Iglehart Research Professor of Law (Race, Subordination, and Citizenship)
IntLawGrrl Karen E. Bravo (photo right), Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis (International Law, International Business Transactions, International Trade Law, Illicit International Markets) (Her posts are here.)
Eleanor M. Brown (photo right), Associate Professor, George Washington University School of Law (U.S. Immigration and Global Development Policy)
Margaret A. Burnham (photo, below center), Professor of Law, Northeastern University School of Law (International Criminal Law, Comparative Constitutional Law, International Human Rights Law)

Danielle Conway (formerly Conway-Jones) (photo, left), Professor of Law, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii (International Intellectual Property Law, Comparative Intellectual Property)
Lisa A. Crooms (photo, left), Professor of Law, Howard University Law School (International Human Rights, Human Rights and Gender, Human Rights in the U.S.)
Marcella David (Photo, right), Professor of Law, Associate Dean for International and Comparative Law, University of Iowa College of Law (Public International Law, U.S. Foreign Relations Law, International Organizations, Human Rights)
Marsha A. Echols (photo, right), Professor of Law, Howard University Law School (International Law, International Business Transactions, International Sales, International Economic Law)
IntLawGrrl Marjorie Florestal (photo, left), Associate Professor of Law, Pacific McGeorge School of Law (European Union Law, International Trade and Development) (See IntLawGrrls posts here.)
Erika R. George (photo, right), Professor of Law, S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah (Internaitonal Human Rights Law, International Environmental Law)
Ruth Gordon (photo, right), Professor of Law, Villanova Law School (International Law, International Trade and Investment, International Environmental Law
Linda S. Greene (photo, left), Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Law (Sports Law (comparative and international), former member, U.S. Olympics Committee)
Tanya Kateri Hernandez (photo, right), Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law (Comparative Law (civil rights, race relations, and inheritance law), Latin American Studies, Latinos and the Law)
Lolita K. Buckner Inniss (photo, right), Professor of Law, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland State University (Comparative Racism & the Law--U.S./Canada, Immigration Law)
Sylvia Kang'ara (photo, right) , Professor of Law, University of Washington School of Law (International Law, Comparative Private Law)
Deana E. Lewis (photo, left), Adjunct Professor of Law, Florida A & M University College of Law (International Law and the Human Rights of Women)
Hope Lewis (photo, left), Professor of Law, Northeastern University School of Law (International Law, International Human Rights and the Global Economy, Transnational Dimensions of Race, Gender, and Culture) (See my IntLawGrrls posts here.)
Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald (photo above, top), President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (1997-1999) (has taught at several law schools, including St. Mary’s University, the University of Texas and Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law).
Gay J. McDougall (photo, left), Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Washington College of Law, American University (2006-2008), UN Independent Expert on Minority Issues (International Human Rights Law, Comparative Race Relations, U.S. Foreign Relations Law) (see IntLawGrrls posts here.)
Michelle McKinley (photo, right), Assistant Professor of Law, University of Oregon School of Law (Public International Law, Immigration Law, Refugee & Asylum Law)
Odeana R. Neal (photo, below center), Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law (Law and Human Rights)

Camille A. Nelson, Professor of Law, Hofstra Law School (Comparative Criminal Law, Transnational Law)
Leslye Obiora (photo, left), Professor of Law, James E. Rogers College of Law, University of Arizona (Public International Law, International Human Rights Law)
Catherine Powell (photo, right), Associate Professor of Law, Fordham Law School (on leave at U.S. Department of State) (International Law, Human Rights, Comparative Constitutional Law
Chantal Thomas (photo, left), Professor of Law, Cornell Law School (International Law and Developing Countries, International Trade Law, Globalization and the Law)
Adrien Katherine Wing (photo, right), Bessie Dutton Murray Professor, College of Law, University of Iowa (International Human Rights Law, Comparative Constitutional Law, U.S. Foreign Relations)
Jeanne M. Woods (photo, left), Henry F. Bonura Distinguished Professor, Loyola University School of Law, New Orleans (Public International Law, International Trade Law, International Human Rights Law) More than I thought, fewer than I hoped for, but what an inspiring enterprise researching this post has been!

For world's women, recession goes on

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this guest post about my scholarship on women and international economic law)

Goldman Sachs may be out of the woods, but the Great Recession is not over for the world’s women.

Will it ever be?

Consider these "Facts & Figures on Women, Poverty & Economics," compiled by UNIFEM, the U.N. Development Fund for Women:

► Women perform 66 percent of the world’s work, produce 50 percent of the food, but earn 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property.
► Women constitute around 60% to 80% percent of the export manufacturing workforce in the developing world, a sector the World Bank expects to shrink significantly during the economic crisis.
► The global economic crisis is expected to plunge a further 22 million women into unemployment, which would lead to a female unemployment rate of 7.4 percent (versus 7 percent of male unemployment).

The chasm between the rich and the poor has become unfathomable.

As a recent U.N. study explains, global wealth is distributed "as if one person in a group of ten takes 99% of the total pie and the others share the remaining 1%." Few argue that this is inevitable or unimportant, but there is little consensus on how to proceed.

What should be done?

Who should do it?

These questions should not be left entirely to politicians, economists, and celebrities.

In a recent article, "Theories of Poverty/The Poverty of Theory," 2009 Brigham Young Law Review 381, I consider the usefulness (or not) of legal theory. The article explains how liberal theories in particular dominate post-Cold War approaches to poverty, as shown in three major legal instruments. It then introduces other theories of poverty, those of liberalism’s 'discontents,' conspicuously absent from post-Cold War discourse. The article concludes by focusing on the limits of theory itself in a liberal international system that has neither the legal muscle to effectively address global poverty nor the political will to develop it.

A second article, "Jam Tomorrow: The Limits of International Economic Law," forthcoming in the Boston College Third World Journal, asks whether existing international economic law -- including the law governing and generated by the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the World Bank -- has the capacity to realize distributive justice. The question takes on special relevance with the election of an American President explicitly committed to reducing economic inequality (at least domestically).

"Distributive justice" is an ambiguous goal. If we simply mean "more fair than what we have now," "distributive justice" is within easy reach, since we could hardly do worse. As a threshold question, accordingly, it should be established what, exactly, is required for actual "distributive justice." I take as a starting point the relatively modest objective of the Millennium Development Goals — to halve the number living in extreme poverty, i.e., subsisting on less than $1 a day, by 2015. As economist Jeffrey Sachs points out, the wealth is still there. It is just a matter of moving it around.

"Jam Tomorrow" argues that this is not going to happen, because:

► 1st, this is not an objective of international economic law; and

► 2d, even if the political will were there, it would not happen because "international economic law" is not a coherent legal subject with the capacity to make it happen. Neoliberalism cannot be relied upon to produce distributive justice, but neoliberalism is not the only game in town.

Constructive alternatives?

Microfinance is fine, but markets are no silver bullet. For further thought, see, for example:

► Human Rights And The Global Marketplace: Economic, Social And Cultural Dimensions, by Jeanne M. Woods, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, and IntLawGrrl Hope Lewis, Northeastern University School of Law;

► Dr. Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago Law School, on the capabilities approach, in her 2001 book Women and Human Development; and

► The brilliant essay on "Exploitation" by Dr. Susan Marks, King's College London, in the 2008 collection that she edited, entitled International Law on the Left.

(credit for photo of food charity in Australia; credit for woman at handloom in India)