We've revived!

Encouraged by our contributors and readers, we've revived IntLawGrrls on International Women's Day.  You can find us at a new website: www.ilg2.org.  Please visit us there, and don't forget to visit Diane Marie Amann at her new solo blog: www.dianemarieamann.com.
This site will remain up as an archive for researchers.

All good things

All good things must come to an end, as they say.
And so it is today with IntLawGrrls.
After much discussion among ourselves, we editors have decided to close this forum – to take a break from daily blogging, and to pursue new adventures:
►Yours truly is deeply honored to have been appointed by International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to serve as her Special Adviser on Children in and Affected by Armed Conflict.
►Jaya Ramji-Nogales continues to do important work teaching and writing on immigration, refugee law, and transitional justice.
► Kate Doty has been promoted to the position of Attorney-Editor at the American Society of International Law. In this new role, which takes effect at the New Year, she will be responsible for overseeing all of the content for International Legal Materials and ASIL Insights, and will write ASIL's International Law in Brief.
►And of course, Beth Van Schaack has been an editor emerita  since early this year, when she became Deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues at the State Department's Office of Global Criminal Justice.
It's been our pleasure to create this cyberspace for – to quote our motto – voices in international law, policy, practice." Fully 307 women have contributed –  judges, professors in law and other disciplines, law students, prosecutors and defenders, advocates at nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations, and filmmakers – since our birthdate of March 3, 2007.  Recently, we've also welcomed 4 men as very special guests.
Together, they've written 6,170 posts. According to Google statistics, IntLawGrrls has received an astounding 1.7 million page views. And rankings just released today indicate that we depart ranked among the top 25 law professors' blogs (and one of only a few at that tier with significant input from women contributors).
We look forward to seeing contributors' writings elsewhere, online and in print. I'll be posting now and again at my new personal blog, Diane Marie Amann, and I welcome you to follow it at the website or via LinkedIn or Twitter.
Deepest thanks from each of us to all our contributors and readers.
It's been a great run.

Go 'Grrl! Diane Marie Amann is Special Adviser to ICC Prosecutor on Children in Armed Conflict

Exciting news!
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has appointed our own Diane Marie Amann, IntLawGrrls founder and editor-in-chief, to be her Special Adviser on Children in and affected by Armed Conflict.
Bensouda announced Diane's appointment in a notice posted today at the ICC website.  This newly created position is for a  term of one year, subject to renewal on a yearly basis by the Prosecutor.
As I've posted below, the ICC's notice also announces the appointment of two other Special Advisers, Patricia Viseur Sellers and Leila Nadya Sadat. They join Brigid Inder, who already has served several months as a Special Adviser.
In her capacity as Special Adviser on Children in Armed Conflict, Diane will, among other tasks:
► Provide advice on issues related to children involved in or affected by armed conflict;
► Support and advise on Office of the Prosecutor policies and training or awareness with regard to children involved in or affected by armed conflict; and
► Contribute to the development of a wide support base for the work of the that office.
It's a position for which Diane's amply qualified, as IntLawGrrls readers will know from having read her numerous IntLawGrrls posts.  Most recently, she presented on “Children and the Early Jurisprudence of the International Criminal Court” at the November 11-12 conference entitled ICC @ Ten, at Washington University Law in St. Louis; a paper based on those remarks is forthcoming in the Washington University Global Studies Review.
Her scores of articles on international criminal law and international humanitarian law include Calling Children to Account: The Proposal for a Juvenile Chamber in the Special Court for Sierra Leone and Message as Medium in Sierra Leone, both of which focus on child soldiers.
Diane teaches Public International Law, International Criminal Law, and the Laws of War at the University of Georgia, where she's the Emily and Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, and her husband, Dr. Peter D. O'Neill (prior posts), is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, and their son, Tiernan O'Neill (prior posts), is a freshman at Clarke Central High School (all three are dual U.S.-Irish citizens). Diane joined Georgia Law in 2011 from the University of California, Davis, School of Law, where she was Professor of Law, Martin Luther King Jr. Research Scholar, and founding Director of the California International Law Center.
Diane's also been honored for her tremendous contributions to the field of international law more generally. In addition to serving as a Vice President of the American Society of International Law, she's received an honorary doctorate in law from Utrecht Universiteit, the American Bar Association's Mayre Rasmussen Award for the Advancement of Women in International Law, and the Article of the Year in International Criminal Law Award from the American National Section of the International Association of Penal Law.
Beyond her expertise, we at IntLawGrrls have benefited immeasurably from Diane's energy and dedication to this blog.  Her new position, of course, will mean changes to come here at IntLawGrrls, about which we will post soon.  In the meantime, we are so proud of you, Diane, and wish you the best in your new venture!
Heartfelt congratulations!

Patricia Viseur Sellers and Leila Nadya Sadat named Special Advisers to ICC Prosecutor

Delighted to report that, in addition to Diane's new position, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced today the appointment of Patricia Viseur Sellers (pictured right) as Special Adviser on International Criminal Law Prosecution Strategies and IntLawGrrls contributor Professor Leila Nadya Sadat (pictured below left) as Special Adviser on Crimes against Humanity.
Patricia's position will focus on the OTP's policies and training around international criminal law prosecution strategies.  Leila will assist in the formulation of the OTP's strategic policies relating to crimes against humanity.
 Patricia, a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University, has extensive experience in international criminal litigation.  She has worked as Acting Senior Trial Lawyer, Legal Advisor for Gender, and Deputy Head of the Legal Advisory Section in the OTP at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).  In those roles, she advised teams of investigators and trial attorneys on the prosecution of sex-based crimes in international criminal law and international humanitarian law.  Patricia has worked several prominent international prosecutions, including the Furundžija, Kunarac and Akayesu cases. She has been widely published on sexual violence in armed conflict and has advised governments, international organizations and civil society groups on international criminal law strategies. She is a recipient of the American Society of International Law’s Prominent Women in International Law Award.

Leila is a leading global authority on crimes against humanity.  She is currently the Henry H. Oberschelp Professor of Law at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, where she directs the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute and the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative. She is also the Alexis de Tocqueville Distinguished Fulbright Chair, University of Cergy-Pontoise and the the Director and Co-Founder of the Summer Institute for International Law and Policy at Utrecht University in The Netherlands. Leila the author of over 75 articles and books, for which she has won several awards, including the recently-published  Forging A Convention For Crimes Against Humanity which won the International Association of Penal Law's Outstanding Book of the Year Award in 2011.  Her extensive work in the field of international law has been recognized through her membership on the Council on Foreign Relations as well as her numerous leadership positions in professional associations and societies, including the International Law Association, the American Society of International Law, and the American Society of Comparative Law.
Heartfelt congratulations!

Go, 'Grrl! Beth Hillman named Academic Dean

Delighted to announce that IntLawGrrls contributor Elizabeth L. Hillman (left) will be the next Academic Dean of the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
Her appointment as the San Francisco-based law school's top academic officer will take effect on July 1, 2013. Beth will succeed Professor Shauna Marshall, who's served in the post since 2005.
Beth joined Hastings in 2007; before that, she was a law professor at Rutgers-Camden. She's also taught history at the U.S. Air Force Academy and Yale. Beth earned a J.D. and a history Ph.D. from Yale.
As is evident from our prior posts, Beth's an expert on military law. She serves as the President of the National Institute of Military Justice, a nongovernmental organization on whose board yours truly also serves. She's a co-author of Military Justice Cases and Materials (2d ed. 2012) and author of Defending America: Military Culture and the Cold War Court-Martial (2005). Her most recent publication is a review, published at pages 1611-13 of the December 2012 issue of the American Historical Review, of 2 recent books on a current area in which she's conducting research, aerial bombing.
Heartfelt congratulations!

New leaders of ASIL economic law interest group

I am pleased to announce yours truly, Elizabeth Trujillo of Suffolk Law (left), has just been elected to be Co-Chair of the American Society of International Law International Economic Law Interest Group.
Joining me as Co-Chair of the ASIL-IEcLIG will be Jason Yackee of Wisconsin Law (right). Co-Vice-Chairs are David Zaring of Penn-Wharton and Sonia Rolland of Northeastern Law.
Jason and I are stepping in after 2 years of being Co-Vice Chairs under the wonderful leadership of Sungjoon Cho and Claire Kelly.
The election took place at the ASIL-IEcLIG biennial conference, held at George Washington Law School in Washington, D.C., from November 29 to December 1. We will be assuming the position at the ASIL Annual Meeting, April 3 to 6, 2013.

On December 12

(credit)

On this day in ...
... 1977 (35 years ago today), were opened for signature 2 Protocols Additional to the 4 Geneva Conventions on the laws of war; both protocols would enter into force on December 12, 1978. Protocol I, which relates to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts has 172 states parties, while Protocol II, which relates to the protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts, has 166 states parties. The United States has neither signed nor ratified either treaty.

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

'Nuff said

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

'The Court was explicit in explaining what is required to ensure indigenous and tribal peoples’ right to consultation. The Court stated that the obligation to consult is the responsibility of the state; therefore, planning and conducting the consultation process cannot be delegated to a private company or a third party. The Court also considered that the consultation process should entail a “genuine dialogue as part of a participatory process in order to reach an agreement,” and it should be conceived as “a true instrument of participation,” done in “good faith,” with “mutual trust” and with the goal of reaching a consensus.'

–  Lisl Brunner, a human rights specialist with the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and Karla Quintana, a human rights specialist with the Commission's Litigation Group, in an ASIL Insight entitled "The Duty to Consult in the Inter-American System: Legal Standards after Sarayaku." The co-authors set forth the reasoning in Caso del Pueblo Indígena Kichwa de Sarayaku v. Ecuador (June 27, 2012), in which the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held that the respondent state was liable for failing to discharge its duty to consult with the indigenous Sarayaku people in connection with an oil project, undertaken in 1996, that destroyed part of a rainforest in the people's traditional lands.
As Brunner (right) and Quintana (left) explain, although the decision arose within the inter-American human rights system, it is likely to have impact on actors brought before other regimes as well; for example, those that consider: the International Labour Organization Convention No. 169, titled the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.

On December 11

On this day in ...

... 1946, the U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution 57(I), "Establishment of an International Children's Emergency Fund." The resolution aimed initially at helping "children and adolescents of countries which were victims of aggression" in the recently ended Second World War. Over time, of course, the mandate of the Fund – known today by its acronym, UNICEF – expanded to include all children throughout the world. On this very same day in 1965, when UNICEF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, the organization was praised for the results it had achieved:

'Differences of view have been welded, almost always, into an accepted concensus in the search for agreement on the best methods of providing assistance to alleviate the agony of children who are victims of cruel circumstance.'

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

The Future of Human Rights in the Americas: Update on the Inter-American Reform Process

Today, on Human Rights Day, as we mark the 64th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the inter-American human rights system – guardian of the world’s first international human rights agreement – faces an unprecedented threat to its independence and authority.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights – which oversees implementation of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, adopted in April, 1948, eight months prior to the Universal Declaration – is undergoing a state-initiated “reform” process that may lead to controversial changes in the Commission's practices and procedures, without the consent of the Commission.
As IntLawGrrl Alexandra Harrington posted in February, since it came into existence in 1960, the Inter-American Commission has promoted and protected human rights in the 35 member states of the Organization of American States. It does so through reporting, country visits, precautionary measures, and the individual complaints mechanism. The Commission's exercise of its functions has motivated criticism and objections in recent years from some states that disagreed with specific decisions – as have Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru – or accused it of bias – as has Venezuela.
In June of 2011, the OAS Permanent Council created a Special Working Group with a mandate to study the Commission’s work and propose any reforms deemed necessary. The Special Working Group’s proposals, which the OAS Permanent Council approved this past January, focused on both the Commission’s institutional practices and its substantive mandate.
Among the most controversial proposed reforms were those that would:
► Restrict the Commission’s discretion in deciding requests for precautionary measures,
► Significantly alter Chapter IV of the Commission’s Annual Report, in which it highlights countries with particularly troublesome human rights practices,
► Reduce the autonomy of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, and
► Impose additional restrictions on the processing of individual complaints in ways that could favor states at the expense of victims.
Civil society has criticized the proposed reforms, and the reform process itself, as lacking in transparency and input from advocates and victims.
A joint statement coordinated by CEJIL, the Center for Justice and International Law, and signed by over 90 organizations, called on the OAS and its individual member states to ensure that the process is truly aimed at strengthening the inter-American system and includes the input of advocates and victims. Representatives of nongovernmental organizations, academia, and the judiciary have also signed on to the “Bogota Declaration,” which echoes this call.
A politically motivated, state-imposed reform of the Commission’s authority and procedures is a unique and pressing cause for concern to all those invested in the protection of human rights in the Americas.
In the words of the Commission's chair, José de Jesús Orozco:

On December 10

On this day in ...
... 1931, the Nobel Peace Prize was bestowed on Jane Addams; she was a co-winner with Nicholas Murray Butler. Nobel Committee Chair Halvdan Koht said in his presentation speech:

(credit)

'America helped – perhaps it would be more correct to say compelled – Europe to create a League of Nations which would provide a firm basis for peaceful coexistence among nations. It was a crushing blow that America herself did not join this organization, and without doubt her failure to do so contributed largely to the failure of the League of Nations to live up to expectations. We still see too much of the old rivalries of power politics. Had the United States joined, she would have been a natural mediator between many of the conflicting forces in Europe, for America is more interested in peace in Europe than in lending her support to any particular country.
'It must be said, however, that the United States is not the power for peace in the world that we should have wished her to be. She has sometimes let herself drift into the imperialism which is the natural outcome of industrial capitalism in our age. In many ways she is typical of the wildest form of capitalist society, and this has inevitably left its mark on American politics.
'But America has at the same time fostered some of the most spirited idealism on earth.'

A longtime advocate of peace, suffrage, and measures to alleviate poverty, Addams was emblematic of that idealism – of "the work which women can do peace fraternity among nations," Koht continued. But Addams, who was then 71 years old, was admitted to a hospital in Baltimore on this day in 1931, and so was unable to attend the ceremony in Oslo, Norway. She would die 4 years later in the city where she had long lived, Chicago. We IntLawGrrls honor her as a transnational foremother.

(Prior December 10 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)