Diane Amann talk at GW

Earlier this week, just before President Obama addressed the nation on why the US is involved in Libya, I was privileged to hear Diane Amann give a talk at an International Law Colloquium at George Washington University Law School. Her talk, which was titled The Value of Peace and the Crime of Aggression, explores the contradictions involved in pursuing "a peace envisioned as the absence of war, yet often pursued through military intervention."
She began by pointing out that, even though President Obama had received the Nobel Prize for Peace, the US is now involved in three different conflicts, and previewed how President Obama would defend the US role in Libya. Indeed, as I listened to Obama's speech that evening, Diane's talk repeatedly echoed in my mind; she had presciently predicted his approach almost to a word!
The main part of her talk focused on the crime of aggression. She reviewed the adoption in Kampala last year of amendments to the Rome Statute that define the crime and how the ICC will exercise its jurisdiction over this crime. She described the eloquence of Ben Ferencz, the 90-plus year old former Nuremberg prosecutor, at the Kampala conference as he urged development of the crime of aggression. In addition, she discussed the US approach to securing peace around the world, and then analyzed the proposed aggression amendments in the context of this history. It was fascinating to hear her explore the paradoxes in American policy as we use force to achieve peace and as we hail mechanisms for international accountability while seeking to avoid such accountability ourselves.
The article is part of a work in progress that I very much look forward to reading!

'Nuff said

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

Looking for a way out of Afghanistan? Maybe it's time to try something totally different, like putting into action, for the first time in history, the most enlightened edict ever passed by the United Nations Security Council: Resolution 1325.

-- The provocative lead paragraph of a Los Angeles Times op-ed by Ann Jones, entitled "In Afghanistan, a woman's place is at the peace table." Jones, author of books on Afghanistan and women and armed conflict, stresses the promise of full implementation of Resolution 1325 on Women and Peace and Security, which (as detailed in IntLawGrrls posts available here) the Security Council adopted on October 31, 2000. The commentary derives from Jones' longer post at TomDispatch blog. (credit for photo by Jones of Afghan women) In similar vein, see this recent IntLawGrrls post by guests/alumnae Christine Bella and Catherine O'Rourke.

Women & peace & security webcast

The Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Institute of Peace invites viewers to a webcast-only program entitled Women, Peace, and Security: Fulfilling the Vision of 1325, to be held 9:15 a.m.-noon EDT this Tuesday, July 27.
"1325" refers, of course, to U.N. Security Council 1325 (2000) on Women and peace and security (prior IntLawGrrls posts here, here, and here), a milestone that will mark its 10th anniversary on October 31 of this year. (As earlier announced, IntLawGrrls is planning an October 29 roundtable in connection with that anniversary.)
Sessions planned for Tuesday's U.S. Institute of Peace webcast are as follows:
► Why 1325 Matters, featuring Ambassador Melanne Verveer (left), Office of Global Women's Issues, U.S. Department of State (prior IntLawGrrls posts), and Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury, former U.N. Under-Secretary General and High Representative High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States. The Institute's Gender Advisor, Kathleen Kuehnast, will moderate.
► Implementing 1325, Lessons & Experiences a Decade On, featuring Victoria Holt (below, near right), Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of International Organization Affairs, U.S. Department of State; Donald Steinberg, Deputy President of the International Crisis Group; Sanam Anderlini (far right), Executive Director of ICAN, the International Civil society Action Network; and Jolynn Shoemaker, Executive Director of Women in International Security. Moderating will be Chantal De Jonge Oudraat, an Associate Vice President at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Details and webcast registration here.

On April 26

On this day in ...
... 1922, Jeanne Mathilde Sauvé (left) was born in Prud'homme, Saskatchewan, Canada. After attending university in Ottawa and Paris, she became a journalist, then, on the urging of her husband, entered politics and was elected to Canada's Parliament. (credit for portrait circa 1989-90) In 1972 she became the 1st woman living in Québéc to serve in the federal Cabinet, 1st as Minister for Science and Technology, then Minister of the Environment, and finally Minister of Communications. "[S]he was the first woman elected as Speaker of the House of Commons, she opened the first daycare on Parliament Hill, and she was the first woman to serve as Governor General" of Canada. (That last post is currently held, as we've posted, by another woman, Haiti-born Canadian Michaëlle Jean.) A "staunch advocate of issues surrounding youth and world peace," and a promoter of those issues in Canada and in the United Nations, Sauvé, who died in 1993, incorporated the dove of peace into her official coat-of-arms.


(Prior April 26 posts are here, here, and here)

On March 21

On this day in ...
... 1970 (40 years ago today), was marked the 1st-ever Earth Day, by proclamation of San Francisco Mayor Joseph L. Alioto, who set aside that year's Vernal Equinox as "a day to celebrate our global unity and destiny," "a special day to remember Earth's tender seedlings of life and people; a day for planting trees and flowers; a day for cleaning streams and wooded glens." His proclamation further provided that

on EARTH DAY the EARTH FLAG which portrays in its center our "Beautiful Blue Planet", be flown to encourage mutual respect for Earth and all its people.
On this day 1900 to 2000 Universal Time (11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon PST) be designated EARTH HOUR - a Silent Hour For Peace ...

As promoted by the poster above left, the global Earth Day's set for April 22 of this year.

(Prior March 21 posts are here, here, and here)

Go On! "Reforming Laws on Sexual Violence"

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia of interest.) In October 2000 the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, however the questions surrounding sexual violence and how the law ought to respond in order to both prevent and punish sexual violence continues to be contentious in both the international and domestic legal systems.

On 27 June 2008 the Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights, University College Cork (Ireland) will hold a conference entitled "Reforming Laws on Sexual Violence: International Perspectives," at which international and domestic experts will consider questions and issues relating to legal responses to sexual violence. The papers presented will consider the treatment of sexual violence in ad hoc tribunals, sexual violence and peacekeeping, transitional justice and responses to sexual violence, and the reform of the Irish criminal legal system in this relation.

This one-day conference is supported by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and forms part of Ireland’s chair of the Human Security Network. Full conference details, including booking form, are available here. Conference speakers include:

► Judge Teresa Doherty (Special Court for Sierra Leone)
► Kelly D. Askin (Open Society Initiative, and an IntLawGrrl)
► Prof. Doris Buss, Carleton University, Canada
► Amira Khair Khair, ICC Women/Sudan
► Madeleine Rees, Head of Women’s Rights and Gender Unit, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
► Col. Ben Klappe, Military Judge/Judge in the District Court Arnheim/Netherlands Defence Academy
► Lt. Col. Oliver Barbour, Irish Defence Forces (GBV Consortium)
► Prof. Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, University of Minnesota/Transitional Justice Institute, University of Ulster
► Prof. Penny Andrews, Valparaiso University (USA)/La Trobe University (Australia)
► Dr. Milena Pires, Timor-Leste

► James Hamilton, Director of Public Prosecutions
► Dr. Tom O’Malley BL, National University of Ireland, Galway
► Pauline Walley, Senior Counsel

Details on registration here.

Can Free Trade End War?

(Part 1 of a 3-part series)

I confess: Sometimes, I look at my career as an international trade lawyer and scholar and wonder if it has gone awry. Family legend has it that at nine years old I told my dad I wanted to be “the international Thurgood Marshall.” It is a testament to my dad that his only response was “great!” As an immigrant from Haiti who still spoke “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s name in a whisper in our New York city apartment, my father’s experience of law, lawyers and the legal system was vastly different from my own. But he gave me his blessing. In college and law school, I was something of an “agitator”: I protested the last vestiges of U.S involvement with apartheid South Africa, I worked with Haitians seeking political asylum in Miami, and I joined protest movements of various stripes (I was even a vegetarian for seven long years). At NYU, I crammed in as many international law courses as I could fit alongside a heavy litigation schedule in the immigration rights clinic. I felt I was on the path to doing for international law what Thurgood Marshall had done for American justice (oh the arrogance of youth!)
And then someone sent in the decoy—that traitor of a horse the cowboys deploy to roundup the Wild Ones. Suddenly, everyone around me was talking about getting a job at a major law firm. “Stamping your ticket” was now de rigueur if one hoped to become a successful lawyer. Soon enough, I found myself trudging to my cog-in-the-wheel job at a major law firm where I met my first love: International Trade law. I don’t mean to suggest I actually enjoyed sifting through boxes of receipts to validate dumping margins, but the Big Ideas of international trade I found very appealing indeed. Free trade brought prosperity, abundance, peace and security to all nations—at least in principle.
The more I learned, the more I became convinced I had discovered the Theory of Everything: Free Trade = Peace + Prosperity – (Ignorance + Zenophobia). Or even more succinctly: Free Trade = Peace.
Yes, I really was that idealistic. I probably still am to some extent (although I would now add that free trade must be fair). But this idealism is put to the test when I consider the way war can unravel in a heartbeat the prosperity that trade takes generations to produce. When I reflect on the recent fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the slow-burn in the Congo and the Ivory Coast, and the continuing instability in Haiti, I wonder if I have gotten it all wrong. Perhaps the path I forged in college and law school—that of direct representation and a focus on individual rights—is the surest path to a more just world order?
I came across an interesting article the other day, which forced me to consider the question. In Trade and Security: Empiricism, Change, Emotion & Relevancy, law prof Colin Picker makes the point that “after generations of study and the employment of sophisticated economic, statistical and scientific techniques, we are unable to say whether the optimistic liberal trade views [that free trade leads to peace] are supported by the evidence.” Picker argues the nature of modern conflicts—the fact that they are primarily internal ethnic/tribal disputes that call up a complex mélange of emotions and passions—suggests that “it is best if international trade is not explicitly harnessed to the goal of armed conflict reduction.”
The premise contradicts basic free trade dogma. Perhaps Thomas Friedman put it best when he said “No two countries that both have a McDonald’s have ever fought a war against each other” (sadly, that is no longer true). Trade is meant to be a pacifying force just as much as it is meant to create prosperity. Suggesting otherwise, to my mind, calls into question the very relevance of trade policy in handling twenty-first century problems.
The question I am left to ponder is this: Can free trade end war? I want to delve more deeply into that question in my next post.