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)!

Go On! AI annual meeting in San Francisco

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest)

Amnesty International USA will host its Annual General Meeting this weekend, March 18-20, in San Francisco. Registration details here; full agenda here. (photo at right is from last year's meeting)
Amnesty is convening a special session for human rights lawyers on Friday, March 18 at the Fairmont Hotel, 950 Mason Street, from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. The event is free, but registration is recommened. Topics will include:

• the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,


• the Torture Victims Protection Act,


• the Alien Tort Statute,


• corporate accountability for complicity in human rights violations, and


• applying actions from international human rights mechanisms in U.S. courts.

Here is the full schedule:

9:00 – 9:30 Welcome and Opening Remarks: Jessica Carvalho Morris (left), Vice-Chair AIUSA Board of Directors and Director of the International and Foreign Graduate Programs, University of Miami School of Law
9:30 – 11:00 Civil Actions to Hold Human Rights Violators Accountable: Successes, Obstacles, and Future Challenges

• William S. Dodge, Professor of Law at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law

• IntLawGrrl Chimène Keitner, Associate Professor of Law at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law (right)

• Andrea Evans, Litigation Director, Center for Justice and Accountability (left)

11:00 – 12:30 No Safe Haven: Criminal and Administrative Enforcement

• IntLawGrrl Pamela Merchant, Executive Director, Center for Justice and Accountability (left, at podium)

• IntLawGrrl Beth Van Schaack, Associate Professor of Law, Santa Clara University School of Law (below left)

• Theresa Harris, AIUSA Board of Directors and Executive Director of the World Organization for Human Rights USA (right)

12:30 – 2:00 Lunch

2:00 – 3:30 Corporate Accountability: Emerging Standards

• Paul Hoffman, Schonbrun, Seplow, Seplow, Harris, Hoffman & Harrison, LLP

• IntLawGrrl Natalie Bridgeman Fields, Founder and Executive Director of Accountability Counsel (right)

• Morton Winston, Founding Chair of the AIUSA Business & Human Rights Group

3:30 – 4:00 Discussion and Closing Remarks

Hope to see you there!

Go On! AALS hot topic: "Cutting Edge of Extraterritoriality," featuring 2 IntLawGrrls

(Delighted to welcome back alumna Hannah Buxbaum, who contributes this Go On! guest post respecting the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, which, as Rebecca Bratspies posted, begins today and includes many IntLawGrrls speakers)

Anyone attending the AALS and looking for an international-law related program to attend first thing Friday morning might try “The Cutting Edge of Extraterritoriality” (p. xxxi). This is one of the “Hot Topics” panels on late-breaking developments. The speakers are: yours truly, Hannah Buxbaum (Indiana) (left); another IntLawGrrls alumna, Chimène Keitner (California-Hastings) (middle); and our colleagues Anthony Colangelo (Southern Methodist) and Bill Dodge (California-Hastings).
The panel runs from 8:30 to 10:15 Friday morning in the Yosemite C Room on the ballroom level of the Hilton.
Here's the program description:
How far does (and should) U.S. law reach in regulating conduct or transactions that take place overseas?
This question of the “extraterritorial” application of U.S. law arises in a wide range of contexts, including the regulation of international economic markets, human rights litigation, jurisdiction over terrorist acts abroad, and the availability of constitutional protections in connection with the “war on terror.”
In its June 2010 opinion in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, which limited the application of antifraud provisions under U.S. securities law to transactions taking place in the United States, the Supreme Court articulated an unexpectedly expansive version of the “presumption against extraterritoriality,” a rule of statutory construction. Lower courts have already applied this revamped presumption to other statutes, such as RICO.
And, as IntLawGrrls posted here and here, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. recently addressed another issue with far-reaching implications; that is, the respective roles of national and international law in defining the scope of corporate liability under the Alien Tort Statute for human rights violations abroad.
The panelists will use Morrison as the starting point to address shifting understandings of the geographic reach of American law and the role of national law in an increasingly global system.
Hope to see you there!

Work On! ASIL 2011 meeting

(Work On! is an occasional item about workshops, roundtables, and other fora that do not necessarily include publication)

The American Society of International Law is seeking proposals for its 105th Annual Meeting, to be held March 23 to 26, 2011, in Washington, D.C.

Here's an excerpt from discussion of the meeting's theme, Harmony and Dissonance in International Law, which will be organized by Program Committee Co-Chairs Catherine M. Amirfar (Debevoise & Plimpton), IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Chimène Keitner (California-Hastings Law), and Tai-Heng Cheng (New York Law School):

► On the one hand, international law has become segmented, as specialized international institutions and rule-making have proliferated in a variety of issue areas. ... Some view the growing body of specialized international legal rules as creating problems in the unity of international law, ultimately undermining the international legal system’s ability to promote peaceful relations among states and other actors. Others view fragmentation as a positive development that reflects the expansion and increased diversity, and hence utility, of international legal norms, particularly in accommodating the diverging interests of international actors.
► On the other hand, recent years have witnessed a seemingly opposite trend towards seamlessness, as evidenced by the collapsing of boundaries between public and private international law, between non-state actors and principles of state responsibility, between law and policy, and between the prerogatives of power and the demands of principle. Areas of international law once considered distinct are increasingly — perhaps routinely — borrowing principles, jurisprudence, and practice from one another.

These notions, the statement continues, provoke questions:

► [W]hen should international law be segmented, and when should it be seamless?
► What are the mechanisms for deciding this question, and what are the values that inform those decisions?
► What do these trends say about international law as a coherent system?
► To what extent are certain groups and their viewpoints excluded or ignored?
► What does this say about who the influential players within the international legal system are, and how that influence is exercised?
► What does the existence of competing conceptions of international law itself mean for ... judges deciding international issues, practitioners seeking to persuade courts and craft international policy, and scholars seeking to understand and propose solutions to global problems?

ASIL members are welcome to suggest topics, papers, sessions in light of this statement by filling out the form available here. (And if you're not yet an ASIL member, sign up here.) The deadline for submissions is Monday, June, 28, 2010.

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.

Interpreting foreign officials' immunity

(IntLawGrrls is delighted to welcome a new guest post, from alumna Chimène Keitner, on an amicus brief she's just filed in an Alien Tort case before the U.S. Supreme Court)

A year ago January, as Beth Van Schaack then posted, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit dealt a “blow” to foreign sovereign immunity in Yousuf v. Samantar, which held that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 does not apply to individuals. Samantar, who lives in Virginia and is the former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense of Somalia, faces claims for torture and extrajudicial killing brought under the Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victim Protection Act. The U.S. Supreme Court granted Samantar’s petition for certiorari to review the Fourth Circuit’s decision interpreting the FSIA, as posted last fall by IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Pamela Merchant, Executive Director of the Center for Justice & Accountability. (The Huffington Post has published Pamela's thought-provoking summary of the case; moreover, information on the case and links to legal documents are available on the CJA’s website.) Briefing is currently in progress, and oral arguments are scheduled for March 3.
Strictly speaking, the questions before the Court at this juncture are, simply,
► Whether the FSIA provides immunity to individual foreign officials and,
► If it does, whether it also provides immunity to former foreign officials.
The Fourth Circuit found that the FSIA does not apply to individuals, and it remanded the question of whether other sources of immunity might nonetheless apply. The Solicitor General filed an amicus curiae brief urging the Supreme Court to affirm the Fourth Circuit’s interpretation of the FSIA. Numerous briefs that have been filed by other amici may be found here.
The Brief of Professors of Public International Law and Comparative Law as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondents -- for which I was counsel of record and whose signatories include IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Mary Ellen O'Connell -- systematically examines non-FSIA case law involving the immunities of foreign officials from civil suit. In the context of this case, the amicus brief refutes two unsupported assertions made by petitioner Samantar:
► First, Samantar asserts that “pre-1976 common law immunized a state’s officials for their official acts.” He relies heavily on this assertion for his conclusion that the FSIA should be read to include former foreign officials notwithstanding the omission in FSIA, 28 U.S.C. § 1603(a), of any reference to individuals in its definition of the term “foreign state.”

► Second, Samantar claims that “the overwhelming current international authority” provides immunity to former foreign officials sued in their personal capacity for acts of torture and extrajudicial killing. The authorities he cites, and significant authorities that he omits to cite, do not support these assertions. Non-FSIA sources of foreign official immunity do not provide a blanket shield from personal liability for universally recognized international law violations, even if such violations were committed by individuals who held government positions.

Torts Against Humanity

We’ve blogged before on the Bowoto case, brought against California-based Chevron Corporation for the injury and deaths of individuals protesting the defendant’s extraction activities in the oil-rich Niger River Delta region in Nigeria (Chevron facility at left; photo credit; Delta below right). Although many accounts of the case focus on the fact that the jury ultimately ruled in favor of the defendant (a trial blog is available here), the case has generated some important doctrinal rulings on the Alien Tort Statute (see for example Chimène Keitner’s work on complicity liability and the ATS). One opinion worth reading for international criminal law aficionados is the district court’s ruling on the cognizability of crimes against humanity (CAH) under the ATS: Bowoto v. Chevron, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 59374 (N. Dist. Ca. August 14, 2007). All key rulings in the case are available here (Earthrights International).

Crimes against humanity are a constellation of acts made criminal under international law when they are committed in the context of a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population. The enumerated acts include murder, deportation, torture, sexual violence, and arbitrary detention. Like many international crimes, crimes against humanity are characterized by a dual mens rea element. A prosecutor/plaintiff must not only prove the existence of the mens rea associated with the underlying constitutive offense (e.g., intent to kill), but also that the defendant knew that his/her actions were part of the attack against a civilian population. These so-called chapeau (“hat”) elements applicable to all CAH serving to distinguish international crimes from “ordinary” acts of murder, mayhem, and assault prosecutable under domestic law (or, for that matter, from “ordinary” torts).
CAH have been the subject of several ATS suits brought by the Center for Justice and Accountability, and other human rights groups, These include:
► Cabello v. Fernandez-Larios, 402 F.3d 1148, 1152 (11th Cir. 2005) (finding that the work of the "Caravan of Death," a Chilean military unit that "traveled to many cities in northern Chile where the military officers engaged in acts of extrajudicial killing, torture, and abuse of various individuals who were incarcerated due to their alleged opposition to the military junta," constituted crimes against humanity);
► Doe v. Saravia, 348 F. Supp. 2d 1112, 1156 (E.D. Cal. 2004) (so characterizing atrocities committed by military "death squads" including the assassination of Monsignor Óscar Romero);
► Chavez v. Carranza, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63257, *2 (W.D. Tenn. 2006) (same with respect to Salvadoran security forces); and
► Mehinovic v. Vuckovic, 198 F. Supp. 2d 1322, 1344 (N.D. Ga. 2002) (finding CAH liability on default judgment for acts involved in "ethnic cleansing" in the former Yugoslavia).

The Bowoto district court joined these courts (and others) in finding CAH cognizable under the ATS--in theory. It dismissed the claims, however, on a motion for summary judgment brought under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 on the ground that plaintiffs had submitted insufficient evidence to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the Nigerian Security Forces had launched a “widespread or systematic attack” directed against “a civilian population.” Id. at *30. In so ruling, the district court cited extensively from opinions generated by the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda (ICTR) and Yugoslavia (ICTY), exemplifying the increased penetration of ICL norms and reasoning into U.S. jurisprudence.



In particular, the court cited extensively from Prosecutor v. Limaj (defendant Fatmir Limaj at right), before the ICTY. Prosecutor v. Limaj, Case No. ICTY-03-66-T, Judgment, paras. 180-228 (Nov. 30, 2005). Limaj involved crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) against civilians within the war in Kosovo against Serbian forces. The Prosecution had argued that the violent acts alleged in the indictment followed a pattern and were committed over a wide geographical area such that they were sufficient to constitute “a widespread or systematic attack.”

In dismissing the crimes against humanity counts, the ICTY Trial Chamber explained that “[i]t is established that the targeting of a select group of civilians—for example, the targeted killing of a number of political opponents—cannot” constitute crimes against humanity. Rather, the attack must be “directed against a civilian ‘population,’ rather than against a limited and randomly selected number of individuals.” Limaj, supra, at para. 187. Likewise, although the “relevant conduct need not amount to a military assault or forceful takeover,” there must be a ‘course of conduct’ directed against the civilian population that indicates a widespread or systematic reach.” Id. at para. 194. The Trial Chamber concluded that the attacks in question were more in the nature of acts of guerrilla warfare against a superior, conventional military force. Id. at para. 195. To the extent civilians were detained, injured, or killed, it was because they

• were deemed to be collaborating with Serbian forces or officials, id. at paras. 196, 206-8;
• were the victims of opportunistic kidnappings, id. at para. 200; or
• were collateral damage to fighting between armed combatants, id. at para. 202.
  

Taking the evidence as a whole, the ICTY Trial Chamber observed that the KLA engaged in the abduction of a limited number of ethnic Serbs (100-140), which led it to conclude that

in the context of the population of Kosovo as a whole the abductions were relatively few in number and could not be said to amount to a “widespread” occurrence for the purposes of [CAH]. * * * The evidence discloses that there was at most a systematic” attempt by the KLA to target Kosovo Albanian individuals believed to be, or suspected of, collaborating with the Serbian authorities, but no attempt to target a civilian population as such.

Id. at paras. 210-211. Targeting only those with links to the Serbian regime in diverse geographic locations did not constitute an attack against the civilian population writ large. Id. at para. 217. Thus,

it is not possible to discern from [these abductions] that the civilian population itself was the subject of an attack, or that Kosovo Albanian collaborators and perceived or suspected collaborators and other abductees were of a class or category so numerous and widespread that they themselves constituted a ‘population’ in the relevant sense.

Id. at para. 226. Indeed, although the Trial Chamber had earlier ruled (id. at paras. 212-213) that proof of a policy to attack civilians is not a formal element of crimes against humanity, it did put some stock in the fact that there was no evidence in the record—as confirmed by expert witnesses—of a KLA policy to target civilians per se. Id. at paras. 215-216, 225. One of three defendants was convicted of war crimes; the Prosecution did not appeal the CAH acquittals.

The Bowoto district court cited Limaj for the proposition that plaintiffs had to adduce evidence that established that the particular acts of abuse in question were part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population. To do this, the district court looked to

1. the raw number of victims in proportion to the overall civilian population of the region and
2. the level of precision with which the attackers selected their targets.

On both fronts, the court ruled that plaintiffs’ evidence fell short. In particular, the court noted that although plaintiffs presented evidence of attacks “resulting in hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries, over a roughly ten-year period, in a region containing roughly 14 million inhabitants,” the victims were targeted because they were oil protesters, or associated with oil protesters, and not because they were civilians per se. Id. at *30-32. The court concluded that the violence in Nigeria did not rise to the level of other conflicts in which crime against humanity have been committed, such as in Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia. Id. at *32.

Following the disappointing jury verdict, plaintiffs moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and for a new trial pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 50 and 59; both were denied. See Bowoto v. Chevron Corp., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21944 (N. Dist. Ca. March 4, 2009). Plaintiffs have indicated an intention to appeal these rulings to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. (It is not yet clear if they will appeal the MSJ ruling). See Earthright’s press release here. Chevron’s efforts to repair relations with community are described by the company here.


The Bowoto & Limaj discussion above reveals a tension in the law over expanding the reach of the prohibition on crimes against humanity beyond situations of large-scale violence or repression. The Bowoto district court implies that not all systematized violence, even if geographically dispersed, constitutes an "attack on a civilian population" within the meaning of the definition of crimes against humanity under international law. Some level of gravity must be first reached before actions will be considered crimes against humanity. In this analysis, the gravity notion appears to reside partially in the civilian “population” element rather than in the modifiers “widespread or systematic,” which seems to undercut the importance of these concepts in defining crimes against humanity. For more on gravity as an organizing principle for international criminal law, see here and here.