Women @ ASIL (5th ed.)

As we have each year since our founding ((here, here, here, here, and here), IntLawGrrls is proud today to highlight women who will speak March 23-26 at the forthcoming annual meeting of the American Society of International Law.
This 105th gathering of the Society, entitled Harmony and Dissonance in International Law, kicks off with the Grotius Lecture by Nobel Prizewinning economist Amartya Sen, for which our colleague Kim Lane Scheppele (Princeton) will serve as discussant. Also of note are: the annual WILIG luncheon, featuring IntLawGrrl Lucy Reed, immediate past President of ASIL; an opening plenary by Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; and a plenary among several international judges. I'm especially excited about the Friday lunch dialogue featuring International Criminal Court Deputy Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda (left) -- wearing my hat as an ASIL vice president, I've been given the honor of serving as discussant/moderator for her talk. (photo credit)
All events will take place at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, 1150 22d Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. (Details and registration here.)
Delighted to see from the program that, once again, there's much diversity in topics and presenters. Virtually all panels again have at least 1 woman participating, and that many have many more. Particularly proud that so many persons featured are IntLawGrrls or IntLawGrrls alumnae!
Without further ado, here's this year's honor roll of Women @ ASIL:

Wednesday, March 23, 4:30-6 p.m.
► "The Global Status of Rights": Kim Lane Scheppele (Princeton) as discussant for Grotius Lecture by Amartya Sen.

Thursday, March 24, 11:15 a.m.-12:45 p.m.
► "The Supreme Court & Arbitration Law": Lorraine M. Brennan (JAMS International).
► "Legal Origins, Doing Business and Rule of Law Indicators: The Economic Evaluation of Legal Systems": Corinne Boismain (Université de Metz).
► "International Environmental Law Making and the International Court of Justice": Malgosia Fitzmaurice (University of London) (right), Natalie Klein (Macquarie), and IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Cymie Payne (Lewis & Clark) as panelists; Caroline Foster (Auckland) will moderate.
► "International Courts and Tribunals Interest Group: Judicial Selection": Eloïse Obadia (International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes) and Gabrielle Kirk McDonald (Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal) (left).
► "Commissions of Inquiry into Armed Conflict, Breaches of the Laws of War and Human Rights Abuses: Process, Standards, and Lessons Learned": Agnieszka Jachec Neale (Essex) and Heidi Tagliavini (Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs).
►"New Voices I: Global Health, Trade & Common Resource Regimes": Lisa Clarke (Amsterdam), Erika Techera (Macquarie), and Margaret Young (Melbourne).

Thursday, March 24, 1-2:30 p.m.
► IntLawGrrl Lucy Reed (right), immediate past President of ASIL and a partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP in New York, at the annual luncheon of WILIG, the Women in International Law Interest Group.
► "Fragmentation of International Legal Orders and International Law: Ways Forward?": Nele Matz-Lück (Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg) as panelist; Ruti Teitel (New York Law School) will moderate.
► "Responding to Nuclear Security Challenges in a Fragmented World": Asli Ü. Bâli (UCLA) and Rose Gottemoeller (Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Verification, Compliance, and Implementation).
► "Seamlessness or Segmentation? International Economic Governance and European Sovereign Debt": Odette Lienau (Cornell) and Ann Misback (Federal Reserve Board).

Thursday, March 24, 3-4:30 p.m.
► "Annual Benjamin Ferencz Session: Integrating the Crime of Aggression into International Criminal law and Public International Law": Teresa McHenry (U.S. Department of Justice) and IntLawGrrl Beth Van Schaack (Santa Clara).
► "The Role of International Tribunals in Managing Coherence and Diversity in International Law": IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Andrea K. Bjorklund (California-Davis) and Valerie Hughes (Legal Affairs Director, World Trade Organization).
► "Dispute Resolution Interest Group: IS ICSID Losing Its Appeal...Again?": Andrea Menaker (White & Case LLP), moderator.
► "Espionage and the First Amendment After Wikileaks": Mary-Rose Papandrea (Boston College).

Thursday, March 24, 5-6:15 p.m.
► "Decision Making in International Courts and Tribunals: A Conversation": plenary keynote featuring numerous international jurists, including Dame Rosalyn Higgins (former President of the International Court of Justice) (left) and Brigitte Stern (Université de Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne)).

Friday, March 25, 7-8:30 a.m.
► "Targeting with Drone Technology: Humanitarian Law Implications": Naz Modirzadeh (Harvard) will moderate.

Friday, March 25, 9-10:30 a.m.
► "Strategy and Planning Meeting for ASIL's new International Disability Rights Interest Group," about which IntLawGrrl Hope Lewis, interest group co-chair along with Stephanie Ortoleva (BlueLaw), posted yesterday.
► "International Environmental Law Interest Group: Roundtable on Research Methodologies," an all-woman panel: Cinnamon Carlarne (South Carolina), Edith Brown Weiss (Georgetown) (right) and Jutta Brunnée (Toronto) as panelists; Sara Seck (Western Ontario) will moderate.
► "International Trade Law and International Investment Law: Convergence or Divergence?": Marinn Carlson (Sidley & Austin LLP).
► "What the Kosovo Advisory Opinion Means for the Future": Anne Peters (Basel).
► "The Role of Legal Norms in Mediation and Negotiation: Views from the Field": Jennifer Lake (Legal Advisor, Independent Diplomat, an advisory group).
► "Ethical and Practical Challenges for Corporate Lawyers Advising Clients on Human Rights": Sarah Altschuller (Foley Hoag LLP), Rachel Davis (Harvard's Kennedy School), and Alexandra Guáqueta (Flinders University).

Friday, March 25, 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
► "International Criminal Law Interest Group: 'Fact Finding Without Facts': A Conversation with Nancy Combs": IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Nancy Amoury Combs (William & Mary) will speak on her book titled above, about which she posted here; discussant will be her William & Mary colleague, Linda A. Malone.
► "Intellectual Property Law Interest Group: Harmonizing International Law: An IP Perspective": Seagull Song (Renmin University); Elizabeth Chien-Hale (Institute for Intellectual Property in Asia) will moderate.
► "Recent Trends in International Investment Treaty Law": Carolyn Lamm (White & Case LLP) and Loretta Malintoppi (Eversheds LLP).
► "The Roles and Responsibilities of International Organizations": Vera Gowlland-Debbas (Université de Génève) and Daphna Shraga (Office of Legal Affairs, United Nations) as panelists; Blanca Montejo (Office of Legal Affairs, United Nations) will moderate.
► "New Battlefields/Old Laws: Shaping a Legal Environment for Counterinsurgency": Ashley Deeks (Columbia) and Sarah Sewall (Harvard's Kennedy School).
► "Elections and Ethnic Violence": Susan Benesch (World Policy Institute); Sarah Knuckey (NYU) will moderate.

Friday, March 25, 12:30-2:30 p.m.
► "Luncheon Dialogue on the International Criminal Court": ICC Deputy Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda will be the principal speaker; yours truly, Diane Marie Amann (California-Davis), will serve as moderator/discussant.

Friday, March 25, 1-2:30 p.m.
► "International Legal Research Interest Group: Greater than the Sum of Its Parts: Global Cooperation in Making the World's Laws Accessible": Hongxia Liu (World Justice Project), Marylin Raisch (Georgetown), and Roberta Shaffer (Law Librarian of Congress) (left) as panelists; Amy Emerson (Cornell) will moderate.
► "Harmony and Dissonance in Extraterritorial Regulation": IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Hannah Buxbaum (Indiana).
► "Labor and Migration in International Law: Challenges of Protection, Specialization and Bilateralism": Nisha Varia (Human Rights Watch) and Ayelet Schachar (Toronto) as panelists; Regan Ralph (Fund for Global Human Rights) will moderate.

Friday, March 25, 3-4:30 p.m.
► "International Law and the Liability for Catastrophic Environmental Damage": Monika Hinteregger (University of Graz) as panelist; Marie Soveroski (ASIL International Environmental Law Interest Group Co-Chair) will moderate.
► "New Voices II: Internationalizing & Domesticating Law": Anna Dolidze (Cornell), IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Molly Beutz Land (New York Law School), and Tonya Putnam (Columbia).
► "Are There 'Regional' Approaches to International Dispute Resolution?": Katia Fach Gómez (Fordham), Judge Nkemdilim Amelia Izuako (U.N. Dispute Tribunal), and Catherine Kessedjian (Université Panthéon-Assas).
► "International Legal Theory Interest Group: Harmony and Dissonance in International Legal Theory": IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Nienke Grossman and Helen Stacy (Stanford).
► "International Legal Implications of Israel's Attack on the Gaza Aid Flotilla": Sari Bashi (Gisha: Legal Center for Freedom of Movement); Sarah Weiss Maudi (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs); Naz Modirzadeh (Harvard).

Friday, March 25, 8-10 p.m.
► "ASIL Annual Dinner: A Celebration of Distinction and Promise": featuring, inter alia, award of the Goler T. Butcher Medal to IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Gay McDougall, (left), U.N. Independent Expert on Minorities; Certificate for Scholarship (Creative Scholarship) to Jutta Brunnée, coauthor with Stephen J. Toope of Legitimacy and Legality in International Law; and Certificate for Scholarship (Honorable Mention in a specialized area of international law) to IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Anne Gallagher, author of The International Law of Human Trafficking, on which she posted here.

Saturday, March 26, 9-10:30 a.m.
► "Duplication and Divergence in the Work of the United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies": Sarah McCosker (Office of the Australian Attorney General) and Catherine Powell (State Department) (right) as panelists; Christina Cerna (Organization of American States) will moderate.
► "Trade and Investment in Africa: Harmony and Disharmony with the International Community": Uche Ewelukwa (Arkansas) as panelist; Angela M. Banks (William & Mary) will moderate.
► "Geoengineering Climate Change: Can the Law Catch Up?": IntLawGrrl Hari M. Osofsky (Minnesota) as panelist; IntLawGrrl Rebecca Bratspies (CUNY) will moderate.
► "Author Meets Reader; International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change": IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Mary Dudziak (Southern California) and Lori Damrosch (Columbia) as panelists; Ingrid Wuerth (Vanderbilt) will moderate.
► "Transnational Piracy: To Pay or Prosecute?": Jennifer Landsidle (State Department) as panelist; Mileno Sterio (Cleveland-Marshall) will moderate.

Kudos to: ASIL President David Caron; ASIL Executive Director Betsy Andersen; the Program Committee Co-Chairs, IntLawGrrls' guest/alumna Chimène Keitner (California-Hastings), Catherine Amirfar (Debevoise & Plimpton LLP), and Tai-Heng Cheng (New York Law School), as well as Planning Committee members Kristen Boon (Seton Hall), Christiane Bourloyannis-Vrailas (EC/UN), Harlan Cohen (Georgia), Omar Dajani (Pacific McGeorge), Jennifer Daskal (Department of Justice), John Fellas (Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP), Chiara Giorgetti (White & Case LLP), Dick Jackson (Department of Defense), Rebecca Jenkin (Debevoise & Plimpton LLP), Larry Johnson (Columbia), Erasmo Lara (Mexico Foreign Ministry), Blanca Montejo (United Nations), Michael Newton (Vanderbilt), IntLawGrrl Christiana Ochoa (Indiana), Jeffrey Pryce (Steptoe & Johnson LLP), Regan Ralph (Fund for Global Human Rights), Hina Shamsi (American Civil Liberties Union), Ingrid Wuerth (Vanderbilt), Lionel Yee (Singapore Attorney-General's Chambers), and Nassib Ziadé (International Centre for the Settlement of International Disputes)!

'Nuff said

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

Companies faced with conflicting demands usually have only two choices, 'business as usual' or leaving the country, a choice that may itself have harmful consequences.

-- Molly Beutz Land (right), New York Law School Professor and IntLawGrrls guest/alumna (prior posts), in a most informative ASIL Insight, "Google, China, and Search," which situates the current saga between the web search giant and the mainland giant within the framework of human rights and corporate responsibility. For another take on this issue, see Googling Freedom, a forthcoming article by my California-Davis colleague Anupam Chander.

Women @ ASILquater

As we have each year since our founding (here, here, and here), IntLawGrrls is proud today to highlight women who will speak March 24-27 at the forthcoming annual meeting of the American Society of International Law.
This 104th gathering of the Society, entitled International Law in a Time of Change, kicks off with the Grotius Lecture by Antony Anghie at 4:30 p.m. on March 24, features a keynote address by State Department Legal Adviser Harold Hongju Koh at 5 p.m. March 25, the Manley O. Hudson Medal Lecture by Edith Brown Weiss (right)at 4:15 p.m. March 26, a keynote by Canada's Chief Justice, Beverley McLachlin (below left), at 5:30 March 26, and runs through March 27. All events will take place at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, 1150 22d Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. (Details and registration here.)

Delighted to see from the program that, once again, there's much diversity in topics and presenters. Virtually all panels again have at least 1 woman participating, and that many have more (those few that do not include women do not, alas, receive mention in this list). Kudos to the Program Committee Co-Chairs, IntLawGrrls' own Hari M. Osofsky and our colleagues K. Russell LaMotte and Allen S. Weiner! Particularly proud that so many persons featured are IntLawGrrls or IntLawGrrls guest alumnae -- not only Planning Committee members Rebecca Bratspies, Chimène Keitner, Hope Lewis, and Beth Van Schaack, but also, of course, Lucy Reed (right), who will conclude her 2-year tenure as ASIL President at the meeting, to be succeeded by our colleague David D. Caron.
Without further ado, here's this year's honor roll:

Thursday, March 25, 9-10:30 a.m.
► "Empirical Approaches to International Law": Elizabeth Andersen (ASIL Executive Director), IntLawGrrl Elena Baylis (Pittsburgh), Susan Franck (Washington & Lee), Janet Levit (Tulsa), and panelists; Tonya Putnam (Columbia), moderator.
►"New Thinking on Social and Economic Rights: Honoring Virginia Leary," an IntLawGrrls foremother: IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Gay McDougall (United Nations) (below, far right), Mona Rishmawi (United Nations), and Alicia Ely Yamin (Harvard), panelists; IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Barbara Stark (Hofstra), moderator.
►"International Human Rights Law, Foreign Sovereign Immunity, and National Courts": Rosanne van Alebeek (Amsterdam), Sarah H. Cleveland (Counselor to State Department) (near right), panelists.
►"Getting to Closure: Winding Up the International and Hybrid Criminal Tribunals": Tracey Gurd (Open Society Justice Initiative) and Anne Joyce (State Department), panelists; IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Valerie Oosterveld (Western Ontario), moderator.
►"Risk, Science and Law in the WTO": Tracey Epps (New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade), panelist.
►"New Voices I": Dionysia Avgerinopoulou (Columbia), IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Máiréad Enright (Cork), and Alexandra R. Harrington (McGill), panelists; Edith Brown Weiss (Georgetown), moderator.

Thursday, March 25, 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
►"Providing Global Public Goods Under International Law": Anne van Aaken (St. Gallen, Max Planck Institute), Victoria Henson-Apollonio (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research), Inge Kaul (United Nations), and Sabrina Safrin (Rutgers-Newark), panelists; IntLawGrrl Rebecca Bratspies (CUNY), moderator.
►"Extraterritoriality: Bagram and Beyond": Sabine Nölke (Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs), panelist; IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Chimène Keitner (California-Hastings), moderator.
►"Hot Topics in GATS and Human Rights": Jane Kelsey (Auckland) and Marion Panizzon (World Trade Institute), panelists.
►"Teaching International Law: Lessons from Clinical Education": Lusine Hovhannisian (Public Interest Law Initiative) and Deena Hurwitz (Virginia), panelists.

Thursday, March 25, 12:30-2:30 p.m.
► Women in International Law Interest Group Luncheon: Dinah Shelton (George Washington; Inter-American Commission on Human Rights) (left), speaker.

Thursday, March 25, 1-2:30 p.m.
► "Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Modern Challenges to Use of Force Law": Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker (Pacific McGeorge) and Hina Shamsi (NYU), panelists; IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Mary Ellen O'Connell (Notre Dame), moderator.
► "Evolving Intersections Between Treaty Law and Domestic Law": IntLawGrrl Johanna E. Bond (Washington & Lee) and Mallory Stewart (State Department), panelists.

Friday, March 26, 9-10:30 a.m.
► "International Environmental Justice: Possibilities, Limits and Tensions": Deepa Badrinarayana (Chapman) and Jennifer M. Green (Minnesota), panelists.
► "Corruption and Human Rights": Leslye Obiora (Arizona), panelist.
► "International Law 2.0": Beth Simone Noveck (Office of Science and Technology) and Renee C. Redman (Iran Human Rights Documentation Center), panelists; IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Molly Beutz Land (New York), moderator.
► "New Voices II": Neha Jain (Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law), Kimberley N. Trapp (Cambridge), and IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Julie Veroff (Oxford), panelists.

Friday, March 26, 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
► "Non-State Actors and the Emerging Climate Change Law Regime:" Elizabeth Burleson (South Dakota) and IntLawGrrl Naomi Roht-Arriaza (California-Hastings), panelists; Jaye Dana Ellis (McGill), moderator.
► "Updating the Restatement": Oona Hathaway (Yale) and 9th Circuit Judge Margaret McKeown (left), panelists.
► "Same or Different? Fighting Terrorists in the Bush and Obama Administrations": IntLawGrrl Diane Marie Amann (California-Davis) and Susan Baker Manning (Bingham McCutchen), panelists.

► "The Rising Use of International Law by African Judiciaries": Erika George (Utah), panelist; Angela M. Banks (William & Mary), moderator.
► "Preventing the Next Financial Crisis: Coordination and Competition in Global Finance": Barbara C. Matthews (BCM International Regulatory Analytics), panelist.

Friday, March 26, 12:45-2:15 p.m.
► "Reform and Restructuring at International Financial Institutions": Anne-Marie Leroy (General Counsel, World Bank), panelist.
► "Theoretical Insights at the Margins of International Law: CLS Meets TWAIL": Celina Romany (Puerto Rico Bar Association), panelist; Jeanne M. Woods (Loyola-New Orleans), moderator.
► "Family, Sex, and Reproduction: Emerging Issues in International Law": Joanna N. Erdman (Toronto), Katherine Franke (Columbia), Laura Katzive (Wellspring Advisors), and Kathleen Lahey (Queen's-Ontario); Nancy Northup (Center for Reproductive Rights), moderator.
► "War and Law in Cyberspace": Eliana Davidson (Defense Department) and Robin Geiss (International Committee of the Red Cross), panelists.
► "Implications of the Global Financial Crisis on International Trade and Investment Regimes": Elizabeth Trujillo (Suffolk), panelist.

Friday, March 26, 2:30-4 p.m.
► "Bottom-Up Strategies for Survival and Resistance: Examples from Latin America and Elsewhere": Chantal Thomas (Cornell), panelist; Berta Esperanza Hernández-Truyol (Florida), moderator.
► "Transnational Legal Dialogue, a Human Rights-Based Hierarchy, and the Creation of Norms": Jutta Brunnée (Toronto), IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Patricia M. Wald (former Judge, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) (right, and Melissa A. Waters (Washington University), panelists; Erika de Wet (Amsterdam and Pretoria), moderator.

► "Remembering Tom Franck: What He Taught Us about the Recourse to Force": Rosalyn Higgins (former President, International Court of Justice) (far left), moderator.

► "ICSID in the Twenty-First Century: An Interview with Meg Kinnear" (Secretary-General, World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes) (near left).

Friday, March 26, 4:15-5:15 p.m.

► "Hudson Medal Lecture": Medal Winner Edith Brown Weiss (Georgetown).

Friday, March 26, 5:30-6:30 p.m.

► ""Keynote": Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, Supreme Court of Canada

Saturday, March 27, 9-10:30 a.m.

► "The Road Forward from Copenhagen: Climate Change Policy in the 21st Century": Ann Petsonk (Environmental Defense Fund), panelist.

► "The ICC Review Conference and Changing U.S. Policy Towards the Court": Olivia Swaak-Goldman (International Criminal Court), panelist; Leila Nadya Sadat (Washington University), moderator.

► "China and East Asia on the World Stage": Deborah Brautigam (American) and Saadia Pekkanen (University of Washington), panelists; Julia Ya Qin (Wayne State), moderator.

Saturday, March 27, 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

► "Advancing Women's Rights Internationally": Cathy Albisa (National Economic and Social Rights Initiative), Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin (Minnesota) and Rebecca Cook (Toronto),panelists; Kamari Maxine Clarke (Yale), moderator.

► "Treaty Bodies and Beyond: The Practice and Process of Translating International Norms into Domestic Law": Susan Deller Ross (Georgetown) and Ruth Wedgwood (John Hopkins; Human Rights Council) (right), panelists; Celia Goldman, moderator.

Guest Blogger: Molly Beutz Land

It's my pleasure to welcome Molly Beutz Land (left) as our guest blogger today. Molly is an associate professor of law at New York Law School, where she teaches Civil Procedure, Conflict of Laws, International Intellectual Property, and International Human Rights. Drawing on her human rights expertise and background as an IP litigator, Molly's scholarship focuses on access to knowledge and the intersection of intellectual property and human rights, as exemplified by her blog today, in which she discusses her forthcoming article, Protecting Rights Online.

I first met Molly when she was awarded the Robert L. Bernstein Fellowship in International Human Rights in 2002. After completing the fellowship, which she spent at Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, Molly was a visiting lecturer in law and the Robert M. Cover/Allard K. Lowenstein Fellow in International Human Rights at Yale Law School. Her interest in access to knowledge grows out of her work on economic rights and gender issues while co-teaching the Lowenstein Human Rights Clinic and at Minnesota Advocates, which included filing amicus briefs in cases challenging sexual harassment in schools and discrimination based on sexual orientation before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and leading fact-finding teams reporting on domestic violence against immigrant women in Minnesota, HIV/AIDS and women's rights in Zambia. After graduation from Yale Law School in 2001, Molly clerked for the Honorable Denise Cote in the Southern District of New York. Between 2003 and 2005, she litigated copyright, trademark, and patent cases with Faegre & Benson LLP.
Molly has chosen Clara Barton, the humanitarian, feminist, and founder of the American Red Cross, as her transnational foremother. Barton, born in 1821, performed her first nursing role at the tender age of 11, when she nursed her brother David through a serious illness. Six years later, she became a teacher, founding her own school at the age of 23.

Following her studies, Barton opened a free school in New Jersey. The attendance under her leadership grew to 600 but instead of hiring Barton to head the school, the board hired a man instead. Frustrated, she moved to Washington D.C. and began work as a clerk in the U.S. Patent Office; this was the first time a woman had received a substantial clerkship in the federal government.
With the emergence of the Civil War, Barton refused to take a salary from the government's treasury and dedicated herself aiding soldiers on the front. Never before had women been allowed in hospitals, camps or on battlefields; initially, military and civil officials declined her help. Eventually, she gained the trust of these officials and began receiving supplies from all over the country. As a result of her untiring work, she became known as the "Angel of the Battlefield." Officially, she became the superintendent of Union nurses in 1864 and began obtaining camp and hospital supplies, assistants and military trains for her work on the front. She practiced nursing exclusively on battlefields, experiencing first-hand the horrors of war on sixteen different battlefields.

After learning about and observing the Red Cross while travelling in Europe, Barton learned that the United States had not signed the Treaty of Geneva establishing the institution. After campaigning for the U.S. to join the treaty, which it did in 1882, she became the President of the American National Red Cross, a position she held for twenty-two years until she retired at the age of 83. Barton's work in the United States included humanitarian assistance in peacetime, leading to the "American Amendment" to expand the Geneva Convention to include this concept.
Barton was also a passionate suffragist, working with Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone and others. She received many awards, including the Iron Cross, the Cross of Imperial Russia and the International Red Cross Medal. Heartfelt welcome!

Protecting Rights Online

My thanks to IntLawGrrls for inviting me to blog about my article, Protecting Rights Online, forthcoming in the Yale Journal of International Law this winter. The article examines the relationship between the emerging “access to knowledge” or “A2K” movement and the human rights movement. (For a discussion of the A2K movement and its intellectual origins, see Amy Kapczynski’s article, The Access to Knowledge Mobilization and the New Politics of Intellectual Property.)
The two movements have collaborated in important ways, including in advocating for increased state authority to make available essential medicines in public health emergencies. In the context of Internet regulation, however, they have tended to emphasize very different issues. The A2K movement has focused on the way in which intellectual property rights limit the ability of individuals to take part in cultural life. (See, for example, the Draft Treaty on Access to Knowledge.) Human rights advocates, in contrast, have emphasized state censorship. (See, for example, Human Rights Watch’s report on censorship in China.) In part, this reflects the way in which each discourse arose – one as a response to undue limits placed on national authorities’ ability to protect human welfare, the other from a need to impose limits on how states treat their citizens. These historical contingencies have led the movements to conceptualize the nature of the problem, and therefore the solution, in very different ways.
On a practical level, this indicates that future collaborative efforts should be directed to areas of commonality – namely, situations in which the state is unable to protect the human rights of those within its jurisdiction, either because of lack of resources or commitment or as a result of the state’s international obligations. For example, areas of possible collaboration might include access to healthcare information, access to educational materials, access to legal materials, or Internet censorship that limits the ability of individuals to participate in culture. Work that is currently being done to develop standards that can be used to measure progress on access to knowledge will also help provide a basis for collaboration between A2K and human rights advocates. In terms of institutional design, however, the challenge is in developing regulatory models that both limit how states treat their citizens and protect necessary state authority. I argue that binding but imprecise norms –often seen in the context of environmental regulation – can provide a means for achieving both of these objectives.
Binding but imprecise norms are only a first step toward negotiating what I think is a deeper ambivalence on the international level regarding the relationship between states and international institutions. Although some institutions resolve this problem through doctrines such as the margin of appreciation, what is needed is a much more rigorous theory for how much deference international institutions should assume with respect to domestic authorities and in which situations. This issue presents itself most starkly in the context of intellectual property and investment law, where states are called on to balance multiple sets of international obligations. (For example, there are several steps states might need to take to protect both the right to participate in cultural life and the moral and material interests of authors.) In our decentralized international system of multiple overlapping authorities, such conflicts must necessarily be resolved by individual states. Future collaborative efforts between the human rights and A2K movements may provide opportunities to articulate principles that appropriately delineate between the authority of international institutions and the discretion that should be left to individual states in resolving conflicts between rights.