On February 12

On this day in ...
... 1934, violence in Linz, Austria, set off 4 days of "skirmishes between socialist and conservative-fascist forces" in many cities in the country. (credit for photo of soldiers deployed in Vienna on this day) The event is sometimes called the Österreichischer Bürgerkrieg, or "Austrian Civil War"; it resulted in hundreds of deaths, more than a thousand arrests, and the exile of some leaders. Its longterm historical significance seems a subject of debate, judging from sites like this and this.

(Prior February 12 posts are here, here, and here.)

On January 18

On this day in ...

... 2000, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (right) died in Vienna, Austria, where she'd been born 102 years earlier. She'd been the 1st woman to study at the arts university where painters like Kokoschka and Klimt were teaching; soon Austria's 1st woman architect, after World War I she helped design housing for veterans. After moving to Germany in the 1920s, she created the design for which she became famous: the Frankfurt Kitchen (below left), forerunner of today's built-in kitchens. The design derived from the belief of Schütte-Lihotzky, who'd "'never cooked'" herself, that

women’s struggle for economic independence and personal development meant that the rationalization of housework was an absolute necessity.

Schütte-Lihotzky and her husband worked in the Soviet Union in the 1930s; they lived as well in France, England, and Turkey. From the last country, she and another exile returned to Nazi-controlled Austria to serve in the Communist Resistance movement. Soon arrested, Schütte-Lihotzky remained in a Bavarian prison. Despite the need to rebuild after the war, on account of her Communist beliefs she found both work and acclaim hard to come by; she did some consulting in Cuba, East Germany, and China. One her 100th birthday she remarked:

I would have enjoyed it, for a change, to design a house for a rich man.

(Prior January 18 posts are here, here, and here.)

On November 27

On this day in ...
... 1981, Lotte Lenya (right) died from cancer in New York City, 83 years after she'd been born in Vienna, Austria, to working-class parents who'd named her Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blamauer. After moving to Zurich as a teen-aged student, she took her 1st entertainment job and adopted the stage name that would stay with her for life. (photo credit) By 1921, Lenya was in Berlin, where eventually she created the role of Jenny Diver at the premiere performance of the play known in English as The Threepenny Opera, by Bertold Brecht and Lenya's husband, Kurt Weill. After World War II, which Lenya spent in Paris performing inter alia for the Voice of America, Lenya launched a Broadway and film career that included memorable turns as the Russian Colonel Rosa Klebb, a SPECTRE agent who battled James Bond.

(Prior November 27 posts are here, here, and here.)

On August 22

On this day in ...
... 1849, in Venice, the waging of war took a new leap when Austria launched the 1st aerial raid against rebels who the year before had ousted their imperial rulers and declared their city a republic. Some of the time-fused bombs reached their target. Others drifted back to the Austrian camp when the wind shifted. The means for the attack were balloons sent skyward without human pilots -- and thus genuine ancestors of the Predator drones that, as we've posted here, here, and here, generate killing and controversy today. (credit for 1880 Russian image of similar balloon raid)

(Prior August 22 posts are here, here, and here.)

Steps forward for Irish same-sex couples

(Delighted to welcome back alumna Siobhán Mullally, who contributes this guest post)

The Dáil (left), the lower house of Parliament in Ireland, has passed legislation giving formal legal recognition to same-sex relationships for the first time.
The Civil Partnership Bill 2010 passed last Thursday evening without a vote, support coming from all (or most) parts of the political spectrum. It now must be considered by the Seanad.
Under the terms of the Bill, marriage-like benefits will be extended to gay and lesbian couples across a range of areas including property, succession, maintenance, pensions. Further legislation is due to extend benefits in the fields of social welfare and tax.
The status of civil partnership will not provide rights and privileges equivalent to marriage, which remains open only to different sex couples. This distinction has remained because it is deemed necessary to safeguard the protection given to marriage in Article 41(3) of the Irish Constitution (right), which states in part:

The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack.

The constitutional text does not, however, make any reference to marriage as being exclusively open to different sex couples. Rather, it is legislative and judicial interpretation of the constitutional text that has presumed this exclusionary stance. Much of the debate on the Civil Partnership bill has touched upon the inequalities that will persist on introduction of this new status, and upon the failure to provide for the rights of children within such partnerships.
Despite these shortcomings, the Civil Partnership Bill has been heralded by many as a mark of progress, a contribution to what Minister for Justice, Mr Dermot Ahern, describes as a ‘modern code,’ that marks a break from a past in which sexual orientation discrimination was commonplace. Included within that modern code are the:
► Employment Equality and Equal Status Acts 2000-2004, which prohibit discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation; and
► Prohibition on Incitement to Hatred Act, 1989, which includes homophobic incitement within its scope.
Introducing the Bill, the Minister for Justice noted that it was now time to add to the legal protections in place against discrimination and exclusion, and to officially recognize and affirm same-sex relationships so as to bring to an end the legacy of prejudice and inequality.
Granting official recognition and affirmation brings with it the question of whether a ‘conscientious exemption’ clause should be granted to those whose religious belief and affiliations do not allow for affirmation or even tolerance of same sex relationships.
A proposed legislative amendment, allowing for such an exemption clause, was dismissed, despite last minute interventions by the Irish Bishops’ conference, who argued that the failure to provide for such a clause was unconstitutional, given the limits imposed on freedom of conscience and on social and civil freedom in religious matters. In response, John Gormley, the Minister for Environment and Green Party representative, criticized the Church’s attempt to exert influence on the legislative process, which he noted was reminiscent of earlier eras of ‘church interference’. The debate on conscience exemption, and its swift dismissal, reflects the changing relationship between Church and State in Ireland, and the waning influence of religion in matters of gender, sexuality and family.
The passing of the Civil Partnership Bill follows on from the judgment that a Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (left) rendered on June 24th in Schalk and Kopf v Austria.
The applicants had complained that the absence of same-sex marriage in Austria violated their European Convention rights, both under Article 12 (right to marry) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) in conjunction with Article 8 (right to private and family life). They appealed to the Court to interpret the Convention (below right) in light of present-day conditions, and not to restrict the application of Article 12 to different-sex couples. The Court rejected their argument, noting the absence of a European consensus on same-sex marriage. Importantly, however, drawing on Article 9 of the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Court took the view that the right to marry was not necessarily confined to marriage between different-sex couples. It nonetheless concluded that:
► The question of whether or not to allow same-sex marriage fell to be determined by national law; and
► States continued to enjoy a wide margin of appreciation on this question.
The Court’s judgment left open the question of whether the absence of any form of relationship recognition for same-sex couples might be a violation of the European Convention.
Significantly, the Court’s judgment extends the scope of Article 8. At paragraph 94, it finds for the first time that same-sex couples enjoy not only a right to ‘private life’, but also ‘family life’:

[T]he Court considers it artificial to maintain the view that, in contrast to a different-sex couple, a same-sex couple cannot enjoy “family life” for the purposes of Article 8. Consequently the relationship of the applicants, a cohabiting same-sex couple living in a stable de facto partnership, falls within the notion of “family life”, just as the relationship of a different-sex couple in the same situation would.

Strong dissenting judgments were entered specifically on the Court’s finding of no violation of Article 14 (non-discrimination), suggesting the possibility of change in the future.
For the moment, the Court’s judgment is unlikely to assist the campaign for marriage equality in Ireland. However, it does challenge existing Irish case-law, including the October 2009 judgment in McD v L, in which the Irish Supreme Court found that ‘de facto’ same-sex couples did not enjoy family life within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention.
Small steps forward!

On April 14

On this day in ...
... 1935 (75 years ago today), an international meeting ended at Stresa, a town at Lake Maggiore (below left), with the Final Declaration of the Stresa Conference. By this pact Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, along with leaders of France and Britain, aimed "to resist further German breaches" of the post-World War I Versailles Treaty "and German actions likely to endanger the peace of Europe." Among other things, the independence of Austria was deemed "common policy." Within years the parties would fight against one another in World War II.

(Prior April 14 posts are here, here, and here)

On December 14

On this day in ...

... 1955, by Resolution 109, the U.N. Security Council admitted 16 new member states to the United Nations. Simultaneously admitted were Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Ceylon (today, Sri Lanka), Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania, and Spain. The vote was 8-0-3; abstaining were Belgium, China, and the United States.

(Prior December 14 posts are here and here.)

On September 9

On this day in ...
... 1379 (630 years ago today), at Neuberg an der Mürz (contemporary photo at right), 2 brothers, both dukes of the House of Habsburg, concluded the Treaty of Neuberg, by which they divided the family lands in what now comprises Austria, as well as parts of Slovenia, northern Italy, southern Germany, and eastern France. The lands were reunified under a single archduke in 1490.

(Prior September 9 posts are here and here.)

Sorry States

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for this opportunity to contribute this guest post)

As a graduate student studying international relations, I watched Japan’s wartime atrocities haunt its foreign affairs. Koreans and Chinese fumed when a Japanese leader visited a controversial war shrine (below right), when a new history textbook glossed over past events, or when a Japanese official blurted out a denial of a past atrocity. In contrast, I noticed that Germany had offered remarkable contrition for its past atrocities and aggression, and also had successfully reconciled with its wartime adversaries. I decided to write a book showing that countries needed to apologize and otherwise remember past violence before international reconciliation was possible.

Well, as I doubt I have to tell the savvy 'Grrls of this blog, things don’t always work out as planned. I didn’t write that book.

Examining the cases of South Korean relations with Japan and French relations with Germany, my book, Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics (2008), shows that denials of past atrocities fuel distrust and inhibit international reconciliation. Japan’s denials damage its relations with South Korea, China, and Australia, more than sixty years after the war. In contrast, Bonn’s willingness in the 1950s to acknowledge Nazi-era crimes, coupled with the absence of denials among mainstream West Germans, reassured Germany’s World War II adversaries. Sorry States thus argues that a country's acknowledgment of past misdeeds is essential for promoting trust and reconciliation after war.

My book, shows, however, that many countries have been able to reconcile without much contrition at all. In the early years after the war, Bonn offered very little: although it offered a lukewarm apology and paid reparations to Israel, West German commemoration, education, and public discourse ignored the atrocities Germany had committed, and instead mourned German suffering during and after the war. Nevertheless, at this time West Germany and France concluded a stunning reconciliation. Bonn’s most famous gestures of contrition — wrenching apologies, candid history textbooks, and memorials to Germany’s victims (below left) — had not yet occurred. Many other World War II enemies (Japan and the United States; Britain and West Germany; the United States and West Germany; Italy, Austria, and their neighbors) reconciled despite little or no contrition.

Finally, Sorry States points out that contrition is highly controversial domestically, so can actually be counterproductive. As evident in Japan and elsewhere, expressions of contrition often prompt a backlash. Conservatives in particular are likely to offer a competing narrative that celebrates — rather than condemns — the country’s past and justifies or even denies its atrocities. Thus contrition can be counterproductive: foreign observers will be angered and alarmed by what the backlash suggests about the country’s intentions. The great irony is that well-meaning efforts to soothe relations between former enemies can actually inflame them. Remembrance that is less accusatory, conducted bilaterally or in multilateral settings, holds the most promise for international reconciliation.

I describe my argument further in "The Perils of Apology," published in the May/June 2009 issue of Foreign Affairs. For additional engaging and fascinating reading, I recommend Troubled Apologies Among Japan, South Korea, and the United States (2008), by one of my favorite 'Grrl scholars, Dr. Alexis Dudden, Associate Professor of History at the University of Connecticut.

(credit for top right photo of Yakusuni shrine; credit for bottom left photo of Berlin Holocaust Memorial)

On July 15

On this day in ...
… 1927, the July Revolt in Vienna, Austria resulted the deaths of 84 protesters and 4 police officers. The political situation there at the time was fraught with tension because of antagonisms between the progressive, pro-labor Social Democrats and a powerful alliance of wealthy industrialists with fascist leanings. According a New York Times report,

The demonstration, which rapidly developed revolutionary tendencies, began after a Vienna jury, despite their plea of guilty, had acquitted three Fascists who last January shot and killed a Socialist and his child.

The announcement of the verdict led to a general strike intended to overthrow the government headed by Chancellor Ignaz Seipel. Protesters also set fire to the Justizpalast (above left), the building housing the Court of Justice that had delivered the incendiary trial verdict. (photo credit)
… 1943, Jocelyn Bell Burnell (below right), astrophysicist, was born Susan Jocelyn Bell in Belfast, Northern Ireland. (photo credit) In 1965, she began work on her Ph.D. at Cambridge University, assisting in the construction of a radio telescope that was to be used to track quasars. After several weeks of analysis, Bell noticed some marking that was too fast and regular to be a quasar. Further study identified the signals as coming from rapidly rotating neutron stars; they became known as pulsars. The paper announcing the discovery had 5 authors; Bell's name appeared 2d. Yet when 2 of the researchers were honored with the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics, Bell was not among them. She is now a Fellow of the Royal Society, a British scientific association; a Dame Commander of the British Empire; and a Visiting Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford.

(Prior July 15 posts are here and here.)

On April 28

On this day in ....
... 1789 (220 years ago today), in the South Pacific, members of the crew of the HMS Bounty mutiny by seizing a sleeping Captain William Bligh and setting him and his allies adrift. As stated here: "For the next 48 days, Bligh and his men will battle hostile natives, ferocious storms, and dwindling provisions before arriving in Coupang, Dutch East Indies." As many a moviegoer knows, the mutineers eventually would sail the Bounty (above right) to, and settle on, Pitcairn Island. (image credit)
... 1987, the former U.N. Secretary-General and current President of Austria, Kurt Waldheim, was barred from entry into the United States by order of the U.S. Department of Justice. As The New York Times reported, DOJ "cited evidence that Mr. Waldheim [left] had '''participated in activities amounting to persecution' of Jews and others in Greece and Yugoslavia during World War II." "And throughout his later years," The Times reported in his 2007 obituary, "Mr. Waldheim portrayed himself as an ordinary citizen who had been caught up in a maelstrom."

(Prior April 28 posts are here and here.)

On March 3

On this day in ...
... 1938, amid "an arid landscape marked only by the occasional palm-fringed oasis," an event occurred that Time rightly has called a world-changer: at well No. 7 (left), drillers "plumbed to a depth of 4,727 ft. and finally hit what would turn out to be the largest supply of crude oil in the world." (photo credit) Time wrote that the local ruler, Saudi Arabia's King Ibn Saud, who'd hoped the drillers from Standard Oil of California "would find water" with which "he could refresh his warriors' horses and camels,"

did not appear to appreciate the news fully at first. It was an entire year after the discovery when he and his retinue arrived in a caravan of 400 automobiles at the pumping station of Ras Tanura to witness the first tanker hauling away its cargo of Saudi crude. Henceforth the King would no longer rely for income on the pilgrims arriving in Mecca, Islam's holiest city. And his kingdom's petroleum wealth would emerge as a crucial factor in Middle East politics and the bargaining over global energy supplies.

... 1918, the newly installed Soviet regime in Russia ended its participation in World War I by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany and Austria (right). The separate agreement was adopted without the consent of the Allied Powers, on whose side Russia had been fighting. By this treaty Russia gave up much: it

recognized the independence of Ukraine and Georgia; confirmed the independence of Finland; gave up Poland, the Baltic states, and part of what is now Belarus to Germany and Austria-Hungary; and ceded Kars, Ardahan, and Batum to the Ottomans.

(Prior March 3 posts are here and here.)

On October 16

On this day in ...
... 1793 (215 years ago today), the Austrian-born, 37-year-old, former Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, was guillotined in the midst of the French Revolution. Marie (right) had been imprisoned for more than a year; her husband, the deposed Louis XVI, had been executed 10 months earlier. The former queen's execution followed by 2 days her trial for a variety of charges, among them treason and sexual abuse of her son, who had been heir to the throne.
... 1998 (10 years ago today), British authorities acting upon an international warrant issued by Spain arrested former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who was in Britain for medical treatment. The arrest touched off years of litigation, which ended with Pinochet's return to Chile -- where he found himself the subject of criminal and civil suits, arising out of the brutality of his regime, until his death in 2006. (image credit)

On September 13

On this day in ...
... 1743 (265 years ago today), in the southwest Germany city after which it was named, the Treaty of Worms was signed by Austria, Britain, and Sardinia. Maria Theresa (right), Archduchess of Austria and "the only woman ruler in the 650[-year] history of the Habsburg dynasty," ceded lands in exchange for payment by Britain of an annual subsidy.
... 1968 (40 years ago today), Albania withdrew from the Warsaw Pact, an alliance of countries within the Soviet orbit. The immediate cause of the withdrawal was Moscow's August invasion of Czechoslovakia; however, Albania (map at left) had been drifting further away from the Soviet Union, and closer to Communist China, for years. Contemporary contrast: this past April, Albania "was invited to start accession talks" with NATO.

On June 24

On this day in ...

... 1983 (25 years ago today), astronaut Dr. Sally K. Ride (left), the United States' 1st woman in space, returned to Earth after completing a 6-day flight in the Challenger space shuttle. The 32-year-old Ride, the 3d woman ever to travel in space, is a former a tennis champion. Ride received a Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University in 1978, the same year she entered NASA's training program. Among her books is To Space and Back (1989), written with Susan Okie.

... 1859, French and Sardinian troops fought Austrian troops in the Battle of Solferino, the carnage of which inspired establishment of the International Committee of the Red Cross. More than 6,000 persons were killed and 40,000 wounded in a day; those of the latter who could headed to Castiglione, the village nearest the battlefield, in what is now northern Italy. There the Geneva, Switzerland-born Jean Henri Dunant, also known as "Henry Dunant, helped by local women, cared for the wounded and dying for three days and three nights." Dunant recounted the experience in A Memory of Solferino, 1st published in 1862. He would win the 1901 Nobel Peace Prize.

On May 23

On this day in ...
... 2008 (today), is marked the 8th annual World Turtle Day. The date was set aside by American Tortoise Rescue in order to raise awareness of the animal's fragile present and future. The turtle's popularity, notes the Humane Society of the United States,

hasn't prevented humans from abusing the creature. In fact, all land, freshwater, and sea turtles are facing imminent threats to their survival, simply because of human activities. Turtles are the reptile most affected by the pet trade, not to mention the food and traditional medicine industries. Many turtle species also suffer from the effects of pollution as well as from the destructive effects of industrial fishing operations.

... 1956, Dr. Ursula Plassnik (below left) was born in Klagenfurt, capital of Carinthia, the southernmost Land in Austria. After earning her doctorate in law from the University of Vienna and a postgraduate diploma from the Collège d'Europe, Bruges, Belgium, Plassnik began working for Austria's Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She served as Austrian Ambassador to Switzerland for the 1st part of 2004. In October of that year she was appointed the 15th Foreign Minister of Austria's 2d Republic, a position she holds to this day. Plassnik replaced the 1st woman ever to hold that post in Austria, Benita Ferrero-Waldman.

Guest blogger: Vivian Grosswald Curran

IntLawGrrls is delighted to welcome as a guest blogger comparative law expert Vivian Grosswald Curran (left), Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in Pennsylvania, also the home institution of IntLawGrrl Elena Baylis. (photo by Linda Tashbrook)
Vivian's publications include 3 books, Learning French Through the Law (1996), Comparative Law: An Introduction (2002), and Core Questions of Comparative Law (2004, English translation of a work by German law professor Bernhard Grossfeld). The U.S. State Department appointed Vivian as the U.S. member of the Austrian General Settlement Fund Committee for Nazi-era property compensation; in recognition of her efforts last year H.E. Ewa Nowotny, Austria's Ambassador to the United States, presented Vivian with the Grand Decoration of Merit in Gold for Services Rendered to the Republic of Austria, one of the country's highest honors. Vivian, who earned her Ph.D. and J.D. from Columbia University, is a past Secretary of the American Society of Comparative Law and book review editor of the American Journal of Comparative Law, and is a member of the American Law Institute, the International Academy of Comparative Law, and Réseau ID, the Franco-American Network on the Internationalization of Law about which we've posted.
Vivian dedicates her guest post below -- a description of her latest scholarship -- to the late writer Nathalie Sarraute (right). (photo credit) Born Nathalie Ilyanova Tcherniak in 1900 in Russia and raised in France, she studied in France, Germany, and Great Britain. An ardent feminist, Sarraute is best known as a pioneer of the nouveau roman, or "new novel," form in French literature. She also was a lawyer, and was the 1st woman to be admitted to the Paris bar. Vivian writes of Sarraute, who joins other transnational foremothers at right, just below our "visiting from ..." map, "Among her many memorable sayings is one I think particularly useful for legal comparativists and internationalists":

C'est ce qui échappe aux mots que les mots doivent dire.

in English,

It is what escapes words that words must say.

Heartfelt welcome!

On April 19

On this day in ...
... 1927, the 33-year-old Brooklyn native known by the stage name Mae West began serving 10 days in jail after she was convicted for public obscenity on account of Sex, a play that she wrote and in which she performed the part of a waterfront prostitute. "[A]llowed to wear silk panties instead of the uncomfortable prison issue," West (left) was released from the jail on what was then called Welfare Island, located in the middle of New York's East River, 2 days earlier on account of for good behavior.
... 1713 (295 years ago today), the decree of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, which allowed that if he died without a mail heir his daughter could inherit the Austrian throne and lands, was promulgated. The 1st daughter, Maria Theresa, was born 4 years later. But on the emperor's death others contested this Pragmatic Sanction, resulting in a costly war. In the end Maria Theresa (right) kept her inheritance and attained titles such as Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and Empress of the Holy Roman Empire. Her husband became Holy Roman Emperor Francis I.

On this day

On March 12, ...
... 1918 (90 years ago today), Elaine Marie Catherine Fried was born in Brooklyn, New York. A student of art, she married the Netherlands-born painter Willem de Kooning in 1943, though the couple spent much of their marriage apart. Elaine de Kooning is known for her own sculpture and painting; in particular, her portraits of luminaries like U.S. President John F. Kennedy (here), not to mention the self-portrait at right. (credit) An art critic as well as an artist, the chain-smoker died from lung cancer in 1989.
... 1938 (70 years ago today), Adolf Hitler, leader of Nazi Germany, stood clad in a brown stormtrooper uniform, stood in an open car as it drove into Austria's capital, Vienna. The next day he proclaimed that the "Anschluss" -- unification of German-speaking Austria with Nazi Germany -- was complete. Installed to govern the country, now deemed a Third Reich province, was Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who would be hanged following conviction as a war criminal in 1946 by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.

On December 7, ...

... 1917 (90 years ago today), at 5:03 p.m. Eastern time, the United States went to war against Austria-Hungary when President Woodrow Wilson signed a joint resolution of Congress authorizing the action. The United States had entered World War I in April, when it declared war against Imperial Germany.
... 1941, at 7:48 a.m. Hawaii time, Japanese bombers startled the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor with an early morning attack, prompting the United States' northern neighbor, Canada to declare war against Japan at once. The United States followed the next day, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a speech to Congress that can be heard here, condemned December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy."
... 1945, a U.S. military commission convicted and sentenced to death Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who had surrendered after Japan-controlled Philippines fell to the U.S. military. On a theory of command responsibility Yamashita (pictured at right returning to his cell after a day of trial) was held responsible for war crimes committed by his troops. In fewer than 2 months the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his habeas petition by a vote of 7-2, and Yamashita was hanged soon after. In time the opinions of dissenting Justices Frank Murphy and Wiley B. Rutledge, Jr. won over many legal commentators; indeed, they were discussed favorably in the Court's invalidation in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld of President George W. Bush's post-9/11 military commissions.
... 1952 (55 years ago today), U.S. Sen. Susan M. Collins (R-Me.), was born in Caribou, Maine.