Guest Blogger: Mariah McGill

It is IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Mariah McGill (pictured right) as today's guest blogger.
Mariah is the Ford Foundation Fellow with the Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy at Northeastern University School of Law. She graduated from Northeastern University School of Law in May 2009. Mariah has held legal internships at the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and the United States District Court for the District of Vermont.
Over the course of her fellowship, Mariah has been involved in a variety of projects to further the implementation of economic, social and cultural rights in the United States. She served as Institute Coordinator for the two-day Institute held at Northeastern University School of Law on October 14 and 15, 2010, entitled “Beyond National Security: Immigrant Communities and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.” The Institute brought together lawyers, activists and scholars to discuss the treatment of noncitizens in the United States and resulted in the drafting of the “Boston Principles on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of Noncitizens.”
Mariah has also been documenting Vermont’s healthcare reform efforts. She published an article in Clearinghouse Review entitled “Using Human Rights to Move Beyond the Politically Possible,” which explains the role the Vermont Workers’ Center has played in advancing a human right to healthcare in the State of Vermont. Mariah's guest post below discusses the incorporation of human rights principles into universal healthcare legislation passed in Vermont in May 2010.
Mariah dedicates her post to Sojourner Truth (left), the former slave, preacher, abolitionist and women's rights activist (prior IntLawGrrls posts) of whom Mariah says:

I've always found her "Ain't I a Woman" speech delivered at the 1851 Akron Women's Rights Convention to be particularly inspiring.

Today we are honored to include Sojourner Truth in our list of foremothers just below the "visiting from..." map at right.

Heartfelt welcome!

On February 19

On this day in ...
... 2002, in Salt Lake City, Utah, Vonetta Flowers (near right) became the "first black athlete (male or female) -- from any country--to ever win an Olympic Winter Games gold medal." She'd been born 37 years earlier in Birmingham, Alabama, Flowers and her U.S. teammate Jill Bakken (far right) finished 1st in the 2-woman bobsled, winning the 1st U.S. medal in that event in 46 years.

(Prior February 19 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

On January 7

On this day in ...
... 1891 (120 years ago today), Zora Neale Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama, the 5th of 8 children whose father was a preacher-carpenter-farmer and whose mother was a schoolteacher. She grew up in Eatonville, Florida, the 1st all-African-American incorporated town. (credit for Library of Congress image of Hurston visiting Eatonville in 1935) Hurston started college at Howard University, then accepted a scholarship to Barnard College, where she was the only African-American student. After earning an anthropology degree there, she was a graduate student at Columbia. As IntLawGrrl Hope Lewis has written, Hurston became an "anthropologist of Black cultures in the southern United States, Haiti, and Jamaica." Hurston taught at what's now North Carolina Central University, and established a dramatic arts school. She also wrote, "four novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays"; indeed, she was a principal writer during the Harlem Renaissance. Among her most noted works is the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). In 1955, she published a letter decrying "ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court" in Brown v. Board of Education "as insulting rather than honoring my race." Hurston died at a welfare home in 1960, and was buried in an unmarked grave.

(Prior January 7 posts are here, here, and here.)

UN Forum: Minorities and Effective Participation in Economic Life

UN Independent Expert on Minority Issues and IntLawGrrls contributor Gay McDougall (photo, right) organized and convened the Third Session of the Forum on Minority Issues at the Palais des Nations in Geneva on 14-15 December.
This year’s session focused on “minorities and effective participation in economic life”—a timely and significant topic given the ravages of the global economic crisis on minority groups throughout the world. (See coverage by Minority Rights Group International (MRG) here.)
According to Forum Chair Dr. Gita Sen, Professor, Indian Institute of Management and Adjunct Professor, Harvard School of Public Health,

Times of economic crisis can be particularly difficult for minority groups that may already be subject to societal discrimination and stigma, and who may be undocumented or migrant workers. Societal pressures to blame those who are the most vulnerable can become explosive unless governments play a moderating role and act as guarantors of protection from violence and abuse.

Draft Recommendations
Consultations centered on the associated Draft Recommendations on Minorities and Effective Participation in Economic Life. The draft served as a platform from which we could explore the roles of minority groups as economic actors and as participants in their own empowerment. Governments, business enterprises, international financial institutions, and other actors share the responsibility to provide the necessities and rights that sustain all groups and individuals. But they also bear affirmative responsibilities to remove barriers to minority groups’ own efforts to build a sustainable and human rights-based future.
Previous sessions of the Minority Issues Forum resulted in recommendations on “Minorities and the Right to Effective Political Participation” (2009) (see also Gay McDougall’s post on the session here) and recommendations on “Minorities and the Right to Education” (2008).
The Diversity of Minorities
The meetings bring together individuals from minority groups and civil society, diplomats from UN and regional organizations, and academic experts to share ideas and to make action-oriented recommendations. The Forum’s mandate is to assist in the further implementation of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Linguistic and Cultural Minorities
This year’s session was attended by approximately 500 participants, including 300 members of minority groups or their representatives, as well as attendees from government permanent missions. The proceedings follow a participatory and inclusive approach, encouraging oral and written interventions by as many participants as time permits.
The fact that many women were represented among the key speakers and participants was perhaps not surprising given McDougall’s leadership, but very welcome nevertheless. The presence of women was not merely symbolic, since minority group issues that have special impact on women were prominent on the agenda and in the draft recommendations. An intersectional perspective, in which both minority status and gender implications are taken into account, was evident throughout the program.

As noted above, the Forum was chaired by Dr. Gita Sen. UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Navanethem (Navi) Pillay (photo, left) opened the proceedings along with the President of the Human Rights Council, H.E. Ambassador Sihasak Phuangketeow.
“Economic Life” in Multiple Dimensions
The Draft Recommendations and Forum addressed a wide range of issues, evidencing the fact that “the economy” implicates all aspects of life, including civil, political, social, and cultural spheres.
Key themes reflected from the Draft Recommendations included:
► Sustainable Livelihoods;
► Work and Social Security;
► Meaningful Consultation/Participation;
► Capacity-Building for Effective Participation;
► Poverty Reduction and Development Strategies;
► Minorities and the Millennium Development Goals; and
► Discrimination and Positive Measures/Affirmative Action.
The presenters highlighted barriers to the effective participation of minorities in economic life. Failure to protect and promote the language rights of minorities, for example, also prevents full participation in education, training, and employment. Gender discrimination, in combination with racial, ethnic, religious, or cultural discrimination, marginalizes or exploits women’s roles in economic and social development. Religious, ethnic, or racial restrictions on land ownership, use, transfer, or title may lead to entrenched poverty among minority groups. Violence and the promotion of hatred against racial, ethnic, or national minorities may marginalize or exclude their participation in the building of society as a whole or exacerbate broader conflict. See McDougal’s recent statement on links between protection of minority rights and the prevention of violence and conflict here. Unsustainable or top-down farming or land distribution practices prevent pastoralists, indigenous peoples, and other minority groups from pursuing sustainable livelihoods for themselves and their families. Such practices may also destroy cultural traditions and ways of living that sustained groups for generations. Policies pursued by business enterprises and international financial and trade institutions may intensify the impact of human rights violations or exclude minority groups from the benefits of human and social development efforts.
Participants also noted some positive developments and best practices. For example, a participant described recent successes in providing effective compensation for African-American farmers damaged by racial discrimination in the United States of America, although more remains to be done for Native American, Latino, and women farmers.
Side Events
Side events on the first day of the Forum included a “Panel on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and the Application of the Minorities Declaration” organized by the Indigenous Peoples and Minorities Section of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. A panel on “Minorities and Natural Resources” was co-sponsored by the Underrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) and Minority Rights Group International.
A preparatory workshop organized on 13 December by the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights and the Minority Rights Group, included several moving presentations on national conditions for minority groups from Uganda, Iraq, Lebanon, Ireland, the United States, and Pakistan.
Formal presentations at the Forum itself were followed by a series of brief interventions by other participants.

Minority groups from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas highlighted concerns or made comments on issues to be addressed by the Draft Recommendations, including
►The status of women pastoralists in Uganda;
►Access to economic participation, land, and employment for Palestinian minority groups;
►Evictions and demolition of public housing, mortgage abuses, violations of land rights, gentrification, and unemployment disproportionately affecting African-Americans and other minority groups in the United States;
►Deportations, displacement, lack of access to employment, education, and health care among Roma peoples in Europe;
►Displacement and other abuses against Ahwazi Arabs, the Oromo and the Degar (Montagnards) (see UNPO report here).
Outcomes
As chair of the Forum, Dr. Sen is responsible for preparing a summary of the proceedings and submissions that will be made available to the participants and members of the public early in 2011. Independent Expert McDougall will present the Forum’s final recommendations to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2011.
The first photo below shows 3 U.S.-based participants during a break (from left) Dr. Carol Anderson, Professor of African-American Studies and History, Emory University, Ms. Kaleema Haidera Al-Nur, Director, Kindred Afro-American Alliance (Kaleema@kindredonline.org ), and (spending too much time with her nose in her computer) yours truly, IntLawGrrl Hope Lewis , Professor of Law and Chair, Committee on Global Law Programs, Northeastern University School of Law. Pictured below (and very much involved in the consultations) is colleague Margaret Burnham, Professor of Law and Director, Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, Northeastern University School of Law.

On December 24

On this day in ...
... 1906, judgment was issued following the only criminal trial ever conducted by the Supreme Court of the United States. In the case, United States v. Shipp, a sheriff and his deputy, plus 4 members of a lynch mob, were convicted of criminal contempt arising out of the killing of "an almost certainly innocent black man" in Chattanooga, Tennessee, hours after the town learned that the Court had stayed the man's scheduled execution following conviction for capital rape. Trial took place in the Court's former headquarters, the old Senate chamber above right. (photo credit) The tragic story was told in this recent ABA Journal article.

(Prior December 24 posts are here, here, and here.)

On December 11

On this day in ...
... 1920 (90 years ago today), feminist and pacifist writer Olive Schreiner (left) died in South Africa, 65 years after her birth in what is now Lesotho. She was the 9th of 12 children born to a poor missionary family. A voracious reader of social theory, early on she rejected religion, and further

rejected the accepted stereotypical gender roles and espoused an equality of shared labour between men and women.

After working for years as a governess, Schreiner sailed to England, where her semi-autobiographical novel, The Story of an African Farm (1882), was published under a male pseudonym "because of a contemporary prejudice against women authors"; she revealed her identity in the 2d edition 9 years later. (credit for circa 1909 photo) Back in South Africa, she married and gave birth to a daughter, who died within in a day, sending Schreiner into deep depression. During the Boer War, Schreiner lost all her property and was interned for a year on account of her support for the Afrikaner side. Her Women and Labour (1911) is described as a "feminist 'bible' of the early twentieth century"; another late-in-life work argued in favor of rights for blacks in South Africa.

(Prior December 11 posts are here, here, and here.)

Black Women Teaching International Law (IV)

Back in the Spring I began posting ad hoc lists of Black women who teach international, comparative, foreign, immigration, refugee, and asylum law at United States law schools in response to a friend’s inquiry. Part of IntLawGrrls “Experts at Law” series, the earlier posts can be found here.
African-American, African, and African-descended women have made important strides in all aspects of internationalism since the days of the international foremothers depicted in IntLawGrrls' pages. Some early examples appear in A Retrospective: Blacks in U.S. Foreign Policy, edited by yours truly, IntLawGrrl Hope Lewis (TransAfrica Forum, 1987) (a historical photo essay available for download here and here).
The list is growing, and, one hopes, will continue to do so as a result of increasing attention to diversity in hiring, course assignment, and promotion practices as well as growing African-American interest in international law. See Professor Henry J. Richardson, III’s recent book analyzing the early history of such links, The Origins of African-American Interests in International Law (Carolina Academic Press, 2008).
Thanks to colleagues far and wide for their suggestions.
► Jena Martin Amerson (left), Associate Professor of Law, West Virginia University College of Law (International Business Transactions)
► Joyce A. Hughes (above right), Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law (Immigration Law, Refugees and Asylum Law). In 1971, Professor Hughes became the first African-American woman appointed to a tenure-track position at a majority law school, the University of Minnesota School of Law.
► Judith A.M. Scully (right), Professor of Law, West Virginia University School of Law (International Human Rights Seminar: South Africa)

On November 20

On this day in ...
... 1910 (100 years ago today), a daugher, Anna Pauline, was borh in Baltimore, Maryland, to William H. and Agnes Murray. In 1938, following her graduation from Hunter College, she applied to the University of North Carolina School of Law but was denied admission because of her African-American heritage. Entering, Howard University's law school, she was graduated 1st in her class in 1944. When Harvard Law refused her -- because she was a woman -- she earned an LL.M. at the University of California, Berkeley. Later, Dr. Pauli Murray (right) became: the 1st African-American person to earn a J.S.D. at Yale, a professor at Brandeis University; a strategist on Brown v. Board of Education; a founder of the 1st women's law periodical; a cofounder of the National Organization for Women; and the 1st African-American woman priest in the Episcopal Church. Murray, whose career was the subject of a recent conference panel, died from cancer in 1985.

(Prior November 20 posts are here, here, and here.)

On October 14

On this day in ...
... 1916, Rutgers University benched all-American athlete Paul Robeson (left), because the Washington and Lee football team it faced refused to take the field against a squad that included an African-American player. (photo credit) Robeson went on to Fame, and not only in the College Hall of that name. He would graduate from Columbia Law School and study languages at the University of London; become a "superbly talented" actor and singer; and engaged in political activism on issues such as the Spanish Civil War, workers' rights, the Vietnam War, and racial discrimination. He was called to testify before anti-Communist inquiries in state and federal legislatures, and for years during the 1950s was denied a passport to travel on account of his views. Robeson died in 1976 at age 77.

(Prior October 14 posts are here, here, and here.)

On October 3

On this day in ...
... 1940 (70 years ago today), the Vichy government promulgated the Loi du 3 octobre portant statut des juifs, the 1st French law to define who was a Jew and then to restrict those persons' access to an array of professions. The statute came 5 years after similar laws in Nazi Germany. Deportations and other persecution would follow. As detailed on the poster at right, the 70th anniversary will be marked in Paris with a colloquium from 2-6 p.m. today at the Maison du Barreau de Paris. Topics to be discussed are the historical evolution of the law and the contemporary question of reparations for the harm caused by the law. (image credit)

(Prior October 3 posts are here, here, and here.)

On September 15

On this day in ...
... 1935 (75 years ago today), at Nuremberg, Germany, Hermann Göring, President of Germany's Reichstag, proclaimed the Nuremberg Laws; specifically, the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. Together they operated to strip German Jews of citizenship and to ban intermarriage and sexual relations between persons with Jewish heritage and other Germans. (image credit) After World War II, many German officials, physicians, and business people stood trial at Nuremberg for crimes committed in furtherance of those laws. The original statutes were not placed in evidence, however. As detailed last month in this obituary, the original was found in a German vault, by Martin Dannenberg, an American intelligence officer, who forwarded them to command for use at the trials. But his efforts were thwarted when the original was kept by U.S. Army General George S. Patton, of whom Dannenberg said: "'that scoundrel.'" Just 3 weeks ago, the original was donated to the National Archives of the United States.

(Prior September 15 posts are here, here, and here.)

On 9/11, Remembering the Other’s Others: International Law & Muslim Fundamentalism

The ninth anniversary of September 11, 2001, finds the international community still grappling with the consequences of that terrible day.
Armed conflicts which began in the wake of 9/11 continue in Afghanistan and Iraq, spilling over now into Pakistan and Yemen with often devastating consequences for civilians. Human rights abuses in the “war on terror” remain largely unpunished, but will never be forgotten around the world. Xenophobia directed against Muslims serves as a useful tool for right-wing politicians in the West. And you may have heard that an idiot in Florida has been trying to decide whether or not he will burn hundreds of Qur’ans today.
At the same time, Muslim fundamentalist armed movements akin to those that perpetrated 9/11, like the various permutations of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, or Al Shabab in Somalia or Boko Haram in Nigeria, just to name a few, continue to pose major challenges to human rights in Muslim majority societies and around the world. For a terrifying insight into the worldview of defenders of such movements, see here.
Muslim fundamentalist armed movements often kill civilians indiscriminately, as they did on 9/11, a day to which Al Qaeda chillingly refers as “Holy Tuesday.” They also target artists, writers and freethinkers for assassination, and purvey systematic discrimination against women and religious minorities and LGBT individuals. They seek to impose their version of the Sharia on all Muslims everywhere – this often means advocating practices like stoning women for adultery. (credit for logo at right of the Global Campaign to Stop Stoning) Hence, such movements pose particular threats to international law in the areas of human rights, humanitarian law and conflict prevention, inter alia.
My article “Remembering the Other’s Others: Theorizing the Approach of International Law to Muslim Fundamentalism,” published this summer in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, challenges international lawyers to develop a critical analysis of Muslim fundamentalist movements and to support the many Muslim human rights defenders battling fundamentalism.
Faced with the current polarized environment, this enterprise is unquestionably a daunting task, and I see the already constricted space for my argument narrowing further. Muslim fundamentalists – and those confused with them – have also themselves been the targets of a range of grave violations of international law by states in recent years, like torture. Racialized discourses and policies directed against people of Muslim heritage have proliferated since September 11, 2001, and are currently experiencing a particularly disturbing revival – what might be called hatredofmuslims version 20.10.
All of this fuels more fundamentalism.
Despite these real difficulties, offering a critical perspective on the contemporary problem of Muslim fundamentalism remains an essential project for international lawyers. As a discipline we in international law have mostly engaged critically with the (admittedly problematic) responses to Muslim fundamentalism, rather than with the phenomenon itself.
► Can we offer an accurate or useful commentary on the responses to Muslim fundamentalist movements if we overlook their existence and impact in the first place?
► Of what use is our critique of the “war on terror” if we are largely silent about one side of that “war”?
In fact, the failure of learned discourse in the United States – including in the field of international law – to name and thoughtfully explain the problem of Muslim fundamentalism actually risks facilitating discrimination against Muslims in general. This omission obscures the fact that contemporary terrorism and the “war on terror” actually revolve around a very specific set of politics and political actors, not around broader religious denominations or religious claims.
Ordinary Muslims or the Muslim religion as a whole must not be confused with specific fundamentalist movements and their adherents, just as most American Christians would not want to be identified with Christian fundamentalist Terry Jones. Yet, the mere critique of Muslim fundamentalist movements themselves is not per se an expression of anti-Muslim bias, just as criticism of the pyromaniacally inclined Pastor Jones is not an attack on Christianity. This, I fear, is a fact that is likely to get lost in the current cacophony.
Actually, Muslim fundamentalist armed groups’ primary victims, as the 2006 U.S. National Strategy for Combating Terrorism acknowledged, are often other people of Muslim heritage. Hence, defending the human rights of Muslims means successfully defeating fundamentalism (and vice versa).
In the contemporary period, Western discourse, including in the field of international law, has sometimes seemed to offer only two choices: the openly discriminatory or flawed characterization (Islam is inherently fundamentalist, all Muslims are fundamentalists and so on), or the one that is too politically correct to even broach the topic of fundamentalism. Neither one is helpful or accurate. What we need is a principled, human rights based critique of Muslim fundamentalism, alongside a principled, human rights based critique of discrimination against Muslims. To paraphrase a brilliant Pakistani colleague, I reject the idea that my choices are limited to accepting either Glenn Beck or the Sharia, and I reserve my right to criticize both. I utterly reject both the would be suicide bombers and the would be Qur’an burners, and neither one can ever justify the actions of the other.
Returning to today’s sad anniversary, I honor the memory of all the 2,976 victims of September 11. They were women, men and children who came from more than 90 countries, from many religious, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and from all walks of life. All are mourned by family and friends. In the current moment, I think about Amenia Rasool (left), a Guyanan-American Muslim woman who worked on the 95th floor of the World Trade Center. (photo credit) I first read about her in The New York Times remembrance section.
I am humbled by the thought of such a terrible death at the hands of Muslim fundamentalists, and compelled by the beautiful complexity of Amenia Rasool’s existence, a life which challenged all simple narratives about what it means to be a Muslim woman in America. Though she had an arranged marriage, she and her husband reportedly shared domestic tasks. She worked as an accountant by day, but in the evening when her chores were done, she was said to enjoy watching taped soap operas and painting her fingernails. All of these things – women working outside the home, dramatic entertainment and use of cosmetics are often prohibited by fundamentalists – sometimes on penalty of death. Meanwhile, many American right-wing racists cannot conceive of a Muslim woman with such a life, nor do those who wave hateful signs in protest against the proposed Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan (“No Islamic Settlements in America”) remember her, even in death. She would have been “the other” to some of these Americans, but was also “the other” for Muslim fundamentalists. It is this complex, multidirectional dynamic that I am trying to name with the title of my article, “Remembering the Other’s Others.”
I am hoping that human rights advocates will remember Amenia Rasool when they conceive of what human rights means in relation to September 11th and its aftermath. This means taking violence by nonstate actors – as well as by states – seriously, as I underscored in my September 11, 2008, post,"Terror/Torture." This means being relentless in demanding accountability for those surviving persons involved in such terrorist atrocities and for the atrocities of response that have followed. This means that we must face up to the menace of Muslim fundamentalism, while (and as one means of) staunchly defending the human rights of Muslims in the United States and beyond. (credit for 2009 photo of protest against Sudanese prosecution of Lubna Hussein for wearing pants)
The task of human rights, it seems to me, must be to create an international community that recognizes the complexity of a life story like Rasool’s, and that protects the Amenia Rasools of the world from all of the kinds of discrimination and coercion and horror and violence they can face – as women, as Muslims, as immigrants, as Americans, as civilians, as people who live these categories as overlapping and intersecting rather than opposing. Rasool left behind four children when she was murdered by Al Qaeda. Let us hope we can make that better world in their lifetime.
A few nights ago, I walked along the Hudson River, transfixed by the beams of the Tribute in Light, streaming upward where the Twin Towers used to stand, in commemoration of the approaching anniversary. (credit for 2009 photo, top left) The powerful illumination filled the sky where the most extreme Muslim fundamentalists had blown a terrible empty hole nine years ago. Despite that grave international crime, and all that has followed, for me these beams of light still reflect the simple promise that we human beings can do better in how we treat one another.

Look On! Suffragists

(Look On! takes occasional note of noteworthy films.)

Just finished watching Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony. The several-years-old documentary is available on Netflix as well as in DVD.

It's worth watching, though best watched in several segments. By filmmaker Ken Burns, it 1st aired as a documentary series on PBS, which maintains an informational website. As is common in works of the kind, the repetition of static photos (necessary given how little motion picture footage there was back in the day), coupled with folksy-Americana music, can make one a bit drowsy at times.

But stick with it. The story's a good one -- one of which this 'Grrl knew precious little.

Told well are the life journeys of 2 very different persons, at one in their passion for changing the role of women in the United States:

► Elizabeth Cady Stanton (near right), a mother, wife, and writer, loved good food and took care to keep her hair curled.

► Susan B. Anthony (far right) was an austere, cerebral woman who never married.

They met in 1851 in Seneca Falls, New York, where 3 years earlier Stanton had convened the 1st-ever women's rights convention. From then on, the 2 (both IntLawGrrls foremothers) worked tirelessly together for women's rights -- especially, for the enfranchisement of women.

Particularly interesting in Not for Ourselves are the moments when that last, singular goal conflicted with others. The conflict saw the women, who'd been staunch activists on behalf of abolition, oppose post-Civil War Reconstruction Amendments because they kept from women what they granted to former slaves. And as the goal of women's suffrage grew nearer, they distanced themselves from African American women in an effort to shore up support in the South. Conflict also arose between the 2 women themselves. The 1890s publication, by an ever-more-radical Stanton, of The Woman's Bible drew censure from the movement she'd started -- a movement that Anthony chose to continue to lead notwithstanding its ouster of her longtime friend and ally. As a result Anthony, alone, appears on the 1st U.S. coin depicting a woman.

Both women would pass away more than a decade before their work took form in the 19th Amendment. This film serves as a reminder of their legacy.

On August 11

On this day in ...
... 1965 (45 years ago today), in the "deeply impoverished African American neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles" known as Watts, "the largest and costliest urban rebellion of the Civil Rights era" began when a white patrol officer arrested an African-American man on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, and violence erupted between onlookers and police. Just a day into the turmoil The New York Times reported: "Officials called it the worst racial incident in the city's history." Rioting went on for 6 days (photo credit), prompting the mobilization of 14,000 National Guard troops and imposition of a curfew over a 45-mile area. In the end, 34 persons were dead, 1,000 persons were injured, nearly 4,000 persons had been arrested, and more than $40 million worth of property was damaged. According to the Civil Rights Digital Library:

Throughout the crisis, public officials advanced the argument that the riot was the work outside agitators; however, an official investigation, prompted by Governor Pat Brown, found that the riot was a result of the Watts community's longstanding grievances and growing discontentment with high unemployment rates, substandard housing, and inadequate schools. ... [F]ollowing the riot, city leaders and state officials failed to implement measures to improve the social and economic conditions of African Americans living in the Watts neighborhood.

(Prior August 11 posts are here, here, and here.)

'Nuff said

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

Comparative sideglances can sometimes aid us in deciding not only what we should do, but what we should not do. A notable example: In the 'Steel Seizure Case' decided by the U. S. Supreme Court in 1952, Justice Jackson, in his separate opinion, pointed to features of the Weimar Constitution in Germany that allowed Adolf Hitler to assume dictatorial powers. Even in wartime, Jackson concluded, the U.S. President could not seize private property (in that case, the steel mills). Such a measure, in good times and bad, the Court held, required congressional authorization.
At the time Justice Jackson cast a comparative sideglance at Weimar Germany, the United States itself was a source of 'negative authority' abroad. The Attorney General pressed that point in an amicus brief for the United States filed in Brown v. Board of Education, the public schools desegregation case decided in 1954. Urging the Court to put an end to the 'separate but equal doctrine,' the Attorney General wrote:
'The existence of discrimination against minority groups in the United States has an adverse effect upon our relations with other countries. Racial discrimination . . . raises doubts even among friendly nations as to the intensity of our devotion to the democratic faith.'

-- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on "The Value of a Comparative Perspective in Constitutional Adjudication," in what SCOTUSblog's Lyle Denniston termed "a rare commentary by a member of the Supreme Court on Senate hearings for a potential colleague." He refers, of course, to the broadsides that some Senators aimed at nominee Elena Kagan (prior post). Ginsburg's comments were part of a speech she delivered yesterday at the XVIIIth International Congress of Comparative Law, about which IntLawGrrl Afra Afsharipour posted earlier this week. (hat tip: Jess Bravin) (The role of foreign context in the school desegregation litigation is, incidentally, a key aspect of the scholarship of IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Mary Dudziak.)

An interesting added note in Ginsburg's full speech, available here: her reference to judges' consultation of "any number of legal blogs." Hmmm....

Transnational slavery

Over at Legal History Blog, Ariela Gross (below left), John B. and Alice R. Sharp Professor of Law and History at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, points to a interesting trend -- a turn to comparative and transnational legal research on the history slavery. It's legal research with a twist:

The turn away from law in the social history of slavery in the 1970s through the 1990s coincided with a turn away from comparison. Returning to law, but from a bottom-up rather than top-down perspective, may allow us to escape some of the exceptionalism that has marked studies of the U.S. South – and the U.S. more generally – without falling prey to the overdrawn contrasts of an earlier generation of scholarship.

Full post, with names of scholars working in this area, is here.

On June 17

On this day in ...
... 1876, Harriet Scott (left) died in St. Louis nearly 2 decades after issuance of the U.S. Supreme Court judgment in Scott v. Sandford (1857), in which she and her co-plaintiff husband, Dred Scott, had lost their suit to avoid being returned to slavery. The Court held that no one descended from African ancestors held as slaves could be U.S. citizens; thus the Scotts were denied the privilege of litigation in U.S. courts. The Scotts had been freed months after the decision. He worked as a hotel porter till his death from tuberculosis in 1858; she was a laundrywoman. As posted at Legal History Blog, she's the subject of a 2009 biography, Mrs. Dred Scott, by Iowa Law Professor Lea VanderVelde (right).

(Prior June 17 posts are here, here, and here.)

Black Women Teaching International Law (II)

I'm already making a start on new posts for the "Black Women Teaching International Law" list! The first highlights Anna Williams Shavers (photo, right), Cline Williams Professor of Citizenship Chair, University of Nebraska College of Law--Lincoln. Her expertise and teaching focus on Immigration Law, International Gender Issues, and Refugee & Asylum Law.

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!