On August 26

On this day ...
... 1789 (220 years ago today), the Constituent Assembly of France adopted the Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen (left), an instrument that, as I've discussed in this article, remains not only part of the French legal structure, but also a global human rights inspiration, to this day. Odd that no one dubbed it a Legal Wonder of the World in IntLawGrrls' contest of the same name.
... 1910, Jessie Gray (below right) was born in Augusta, Georgia. As an adult she would become one of a handful of leading cancer surgeons in North America, and thus earn the nickname "Canada's 'first lady of surgery.'" Among her other "1st" achievements: in 1934, 1st woman to receive a gold medal in medicine at the University of Toronto; in 1939, 1st woman to obtain the master of surgery degree; 1st woman resident surgeon at the Toronto General Hospital; in 1941, 1st woman fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons; 1st woman member of the Central Surgical Society of North America; and in 1966, 1st woman to be elected to the Science Council of Canada. In 1941 Dr. Gray joined the staff at Women's College Hospital in Toronto, and she held the post of surgeon in chief from 1945 until her retirement 2 decades later. She died in Toronto in 1978.

(Prior August 26 posts here and here)

Guest Blogger: Ursula Bentele

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure today to welcome guest blogger Ursula Bentele (right).
Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School in New York, Ursula is a noted expert on capital punishment. Having argued numerous death penalty appeals, she was awarded the New York City Bar Association's Thurgood Marshall Award, given to attorneys who have represented those sentenced to death. As a participant in the National Science Foundation-funded Capital Jury Project, Ursula analyzed the findings of more than 1,000 persons who served on juries in capital cases. She is the author of Appellate Advocacy: Principles and Practice (4th ed., 2004) (with Eve Cary) and Capital Case Sentencing: How to Protect Your Client (1988). Ursula practiced at the Legal Aid Society before entering academia.
In her guest post below, Ursula discusses her most recent paper, an examination of the practice of using comparative analysis to interpret the South African Constitution. (That Constitution, incidentally, is among IntLawGrrls' Legal Wonders of the World. The subject of constitutional comparativism, moreover, is an issue of great interest to this IntLawGrrl, whose written on U.S. constitutional decisions here and here.) This paper joins her prior study on law in that country: Back to an International Perspective on the Death Penalty As a Cruel Punishment: The Example of South Africa, 753 Tulane Law Review 251 (1998).
Ursula dedicates her guest post to Gertrude Bell (1868-1926). Born to a wealthy British family, Bell (below left) was the 1st woman to earn a 1st-class degree in Modern History at Oxford University. She spent most of her life, after visiting an uncle serving as British envoy in Tehran, Persia, in 1892, traveling and working in the Middle East. Bell became fluent in Arabic, Persian, French and German, and her reports assisted the Arab campaign of T.E. Lawrence. Ursula writes: "Although controversy persists about her role in drawing the borders for the modern state of Iraq, I found inspiring, in addition to her great personal courage and independence, her ability to communicate and empathize with, and to learn from, people of strikingly varied backgrounds and beliefs." Janet Wallach's account of Bell's life in Desert Queen (2005) (left) is well worth a read. Bell -- who, incidentally, sailed on the SS Lotus 13 years before that steamship crashed and gave rise to a famous international law decision -- joins other transnational foremothers in the list at right, just below our "visiting from..." map.
Heartfelt welcome!

On April 17

On this day in ...
... 1982, Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed Canada's Constitution Act. Effective the next day, the Act ended British authority in Canada, though it remains a constitutional monarchy and part of the Commonwealth. The Act also brought into force the written Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These events were nominated as a Legal Wonder of the World in IntLawGrrls' contest. (Incidentally, nominations are still being accepted.)
... 1961, with U.S. support by sea and air, 1,400 Cuban exiles landed on "a beach surrounded by a mosquito-infested swamp" at the island country's Bahía de Cochinos. The troops of Fidel Castro, Cuba's Premier, routed the invaders in what has come to be known as the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Speaking of President John F. Kennedy, who gave the green light for an operation that had been in planning well before Kennedy's inauguration 2 months earlier, the BBC wrote:

It was the worst foreign policy embarrassment of his career.

On January 31, ...

... 2007, Adelaide Tambo (below), South African anti-apartheid activist, died at age 77 at her home in Johannesburg. According to her African National Congress biography:

Her political life started at the age of 10 after a police raid following a riot in Top Location, in which a police officer had been killed. Tambo's ailing grandfather, aged 82, was among those arrested and marched to the town square. Here the old man collapsed.
'I sat with him until he regained consciousness,' Tambo recalled in an interview. 'The way those young policemen pushed him around and called him 'boy' decided me. I swore I would fight them till the end.'

She spent much of her life in exile along with her husband, Oliver Tambo. During this time she was based in London and served as the ANC's a founder of the Afro-Asian Solidarity Movement and the Pan-African Women's Organisation. The couple returned to South Africa in 1990; Oliver died 3 years later. Upon the death of the woman known as "Ma Tambo" or "Mama Adelaide, "South Africa's 1st post-apartheid President, Nelson Mandela, "who shared her birthday, said he mourned the 'passing away of a close personal friend, a comrade and one of the great heroines of our nation.'"
... 1865, with negotiations under way to end the 4-year-old Civil War, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery by a vote of 113 to 58. The New York Times wrote of this step toward ratification,

the enthusiasm of all present, save a few disappointed politicians, knew no bounds, and for several moments the scene was grand and impressive beyond description. No attempt was made to suppress the applause which came from all sides, every one feeling that the occasion justified the fullest expression of approbation and joy.

The 13th Amendment -- one of IntLawGrrls' Legal Wonders of the World -- would take effect in December of the same year.

On November 18, ...

... 1967 (40 years ago today), movement of farm animals was banned throughout England and Wales, and an international motorsport rally set to begin in London was canceled, as Britain strove to contain the worst epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease since 1923. Nearly half a million pigs, cattle, and other livestock would be slaughtered before the outbreak, which lasted 32 weeks and "is thought to have been transmitted from infected meat legally imported into the country from Argentina and legally introduced into the animal food chain," could be contained. (photo courtesy of the BBC)
... 1993, nearly 2 dozen leaders, among them F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, gave approval to a new South African Constitution. Containing an expansive Bill of Rights and providing for an end to apartheid-created "homelands" after the holding of elections in spring 1994, that document has been named an IntLawGrrls Legal Wonder of the World. (Still welcoming Legal Wonder nominees, incidentally.)

7 new architectural wonders; legal wonders awaited

Following a flurry of server-crashing votes, a tally of 90 million ballots revealed this list of the world's new 7 architectural wonders:
• Great Wall, China
• Petra, Jordan
• Statue of Christ the Redeemer, Brazil
• Machu Picchu, Peru
• Chichen Itza pyramid, Mexico
• Colosseum, Italy
• Taj Mahal, India (right)
The Pyramids of Giza, Egypt, the only ancient wonder yet standing, was named an "honorary" new wonder.
IntLawGrrls, meanwhile, continues the contest to Name the World's 7 Legal Wonders. Nominees so far:
• 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
• Constitution of the Republic of South Africa
• Law Merchant
• Edicts of Aśoka
• Code of Hammurabi
• Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
• Magna Carta
• Canadian Consitution (especially, the Canadian Charter of Rights)
• 1949 Geneva Conventions
• Torture Memos
What (or who) is your positive (or negative) Legal Wonder of the World? Tell us, with a brief description of your reasons, by posting a comment or by e-mailing us at intlawgrrls@gmail.com.

On July 7 ...

... 1981, President Ronald Reagan announced his nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor (both at right), then a state appellate judge in Arizona, to become the 1st woman to serve as a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Subsequently receiving the unanimous confirmation of the Senate, O'Connor served a quarter-century, retiring in 2006.
... 2007 (today), denominated 07-07-07, is both the day of a world of Live Earth concerts to raise money and awareness about global warming, and, as we've posted, also the final day of voting for the New 7 Wonders contest about which . But there's no time limit yet on nomination for IntLawGrrls' own Name the World's 7 Legal Wonders contest; send us your nominee to intlawgrrls@gmail.com.
... 1938, U.S. Rep. Julia Carson (D-Ind.) was born in Louisville, Kentucky.

Announcing, from across the blogosphere, 5 new "Legal Wonders' nominees!

Heartfelt thanks to our colleague Anil Kalhan for making Dorf on Law the 1st cross-blog participant in our ongoing contest to Name the World's 7 Legal Wonders. After listing the nominees to date -- (1) the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, (2) the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, (3) the Law Merchant, and (4) the Edicts of Aśoka -- he remarks:

Just as interesting as any particular candidate for "Legal Wonder" may be what the nominations say about the cultures from which these Legal Wonders have emerged and our own. Mary Rebecca Bynum has written that when she teaches her undergraduate course on "The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World," her purpose is not simply to teach students about the Seven Wonders themselves, but to explore "how members of one culture view other cultures, and what use they make of other cultures in their own world." This contest, too, may be as much a window into our own values, ideals, and culture as it is into the cultures that produced the particular "Legal Wonders" being nominated.

Then comes Anil's nomination:

So who or what do we nominate here at Dorf on Law? There are of course many worthy candidates, but I nominate Dr. B.R. Ambedkar [left], a Dalit (or so-called "untouchable")leader who at times clashed with Gandhi and other Congress leaders during the Indian independence movement and later became one of the principal architects of the Indian constitution, which among many other notable things abolished "untouchability." Over fifty years after his death, Ambedkar remains a deeply influential figure in contemporary India, and to some people a controversial one. A crude indicator of progress under Ambedkar's Constitution may be seen in the sweeping recent victory in the state of Uttar Pradesh by the Bahujan Samajwadi Party, a party created principally to represent and advocate on behalf of Dalits. Not only did the BSP surprise observers by winning an absolute majority of seats in the state -- returning Mayawati, the first Dalit woman to lead any of India's states, to power as the state's Chief Minister -- but it apparently did so with significant support from a "rainbow coalition" that included significant numbers of upper caste Hindus. On the other hand, for a sense of how far India has yet to go to fully realize its formal abolition of untouchability, recall my post on the status of Dalits from several months ago.

What's more, commenters at Dorf on Law added even more nominees, both positive and negative.

From commenter Caleb: "I'd suggest the Magna Carta [right] and -- in a bout of sentimentality perhaps -- the Canadian Constitution. It did what new contemporary constitutions did, and tried to enshrine principles of equality and protection between different groups without forcing assimilation."

Meanwhile, commenter Juan named: 1st, as a positive influence, the 4 1949 Geneva Conventions on the laws of war, and 2d, as a "fiasco," memoranda written by members of the Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Often called the "'torture
memos,'" many are reprinted in The Torture Papers.

Whew -- 5 new nominees in 1 fell swoop. And more to come, we hope: tell us yours, with a brief description of your reasons, by posting a comment or by e-mailing us at intlawgrrls@gmail.com.

Legal Wonder Nominee: Hammurabi's Code

The latest entry in our "Name the World's 7 Legal Wonders" contest is the Code of Hammurabi, nominated by Victoria E. Jozef, just graduated from Pepperdine School of Law (Heartfelt thanks & congratulations!)
Promulgated around 1780 BCE (that is, "Before the Common Era," now the preferred rendering of what U.S. schoolchildren used to learn as "B.C." for "Before Christ"), the Code is said to be the most lasting contribution of Hammurabi, 6th king of the 1st Babylonia dynasty that ruled Mesopotamia, now Iraq. The Code was "the earliest-known example of a ruler proclaiming publicly to his people an entire body of laws, arranged in orderly groups, so that all men might read and know what was required of them," according to a 1915 treatise. It continued:

The code was carved upon a black stone monument, eight feet high, and clearly intended to be read in public view. This noted stone was found in the year 1901, not in Babylon, but in a city of the Persian mountains, to which some later conqueror must have carried it in triumph. It begins and ends with addresses to the gods. Even a law code was in those days regarded as a subject for prayer, though the prayers here are chiefly cursings of whoever shall neglect or destroy the law.
The code then regulates in clear and definite strokes the organization of society. The judge who blunders in a law case is to be expelled from his judgeship forever, and heavily fined. The witness who testifies falsely is to be slain. Indeed, all the heavier crimes are made punishable with death.
Even if a man builds a house badly, and it falls and kills the owner, the builder is to be slain. If the owner's son was killed, then the builder's son is slain. We can see where the Hebrews learned their law of "an eye for an eye." These grim retaliatory punishments take no note of excuses or explanations, but only of the fact -- with one striking exception. An accused person was allowed to cast himself into "the river," the Euphrates. Apparently the art of swimming was unknown; for if the current bore him to the shore alive he was declared innocent, if he drowned he was guilty. So we learn that faith in the justice of the ruling gods was already firmly, though somewhat childishly, established in the minds of men.
Yet even with this earliest set of laws, as with most things Babylonian, ... Hammurabi's code was not really the earliest. The preceding sets of laws have disappeared, but we have found several traces of them, and Hammurabi's own code clearly implies their existence. He is but reorganizing a legal system long established.

The Code is our 5th nominee, following (1) the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, (2) the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, (3) the Law Merchant, and (4) the Edicts of Aśoka. We look forward to hearing your nominee. Tell us, with a brief description of your reasons, by posting a comment or by e-mailing us at intlawgrrls@gmail.com.

From India, another "Legal Wonders" nominee

Another entry for our "Name the World's 7 Legal Wonders" contest!
Of the Edicts of Aśoka, blog reader Patrick S. O'Donnell writes:

[T]he Indian emperor Aśoka (304-232 BCE) ... ruled the Mauryan Empire on the Indian subcontinent from c. 270-232 BCE. His edicts gave shape to his understanding of the Dharma of Buddhism, meaning for him ‘a moral polity of active social concern, religious tolerance, ecological awareness, the observance of common ethical precepts, and the renunciation of war [the sound of drums is now the sound of principle—dharma—not war]:’ ...

Patrick gives examples of the Edicts (a stone pillar fragment, now at the British Museum, pictured at right): orders for "banyan trees and mango groves to be planted, resthouses to be built, and wells to be dug every half-mile along the roads"; "an end to the killing and consumption of most animals in the royal kitchens"; "provision of medical facilities for men and beasts"; "generosity toward priests and ascetics, and frugality in spending"; commissioning "officers to work for the welfare and happiness of the poor and aged"; declaration of "his intention constantly to promote the welfare of all beings so as to pay off his debt to living creatures and to work for their happiness in this world and the next"; and honoring "men of all faiths."
He concludes that the Edicts of Aśoka (the emperor's pictured left) "were in stark contrast to the largely amoral maxims of power found in Kautilya’s Arthaśāstra (‘Science of Wealth,’ i.e., politics and economics), the latter’s reflections on power and conceptions of raison d’état not dissimilar to those of Machiavelli and Hobbes in Western political philosophy."
Aśoka's Edicts constitute our 4th nominee -- joining (1) the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, (2) the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, and (3) the Law Merchant -- and another entry will arrive tomorrow (stay tuned).
What's your nominee? It can be a human artifact or a human being, a positive or a negative influence on the law. Tell us, with a brief description of your reasons, by posting a comment or by e-mailing us at intlawgrrls@gmail.com.

We have a "Legal Wonders" nominee!

Heartfelt thanks to reader Art Gemmell for joining our Name the World's 7 Legal Wonders contest. Art writes:

"My nomination is the Law Merchant for its contribution to the development of law, courts, equity, arbitration, and the speed with which disputes were administered.
"The Law Merchant saw the widespread use of agency principles, executory contracts, oral contracts, and a PEACEFUL transnational enforcement regime."

A worthy nominee, indeed, law merchant (also known as lex mercatoria). It joins 2 already-named candidates: (1) 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; and (2) the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.
What's your nominee? Tell us by posting a comment or by e-mailing us at intlawgrrls@gmail.com

A legal wonder: the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa

My nominee for the World's 7 Legal Wonders contest:
The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. This document is an inspiring example of the ability of visionaries and heroes to establish the rule of law, equality, and justice in a country that was for decades oppressive, undemocratic, and divided. Moreover, its progressive
and comprehensive Bill of Rights includes civil and political rights such as the rights to equality and human dignity as well as social and economic rights such as the rights to housing and education. Finally, Articles 231, 232 and 233 mandate that self-executing treaty provisions and customary international law are domestic law unless they violate the Constitution or a statute, and domestic legislation must be reasonably interpreted to be consistent with international law. Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, indeed! See here for details on the contest . . .

What's your nominee??