Go On! ILW 2011

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

Next month will see the 90th annual meeting of the American Branch of the International Law Association, for which IntLawGrrls alumna Ruth Wedgwood serves as President.
The meeting, of course, is International Law Weekend 2011, to be held the 4th weekend in October in New York: events on Thursday, October 20, will take place at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York; on October 21 and 22, and at Fordham University School of Law.
Co-chairing the conference are Fordham Law Professor Martin S. Flaherty, Sahra Diament of the U.N. Office of Legal Affairs, and Jill Schmieder Hereau of the cosponsoring International Law Students Association.
Organizers write that the conference, themed International Law and National Politics,

will explore the intersection of international rules and norms and domestic politics and policymaking. To what extent do international standards influence the application and interpretation of national law including complementary or countervailing policies sought by domestic policymakers, non-governmental actors and/or civil society? Expert panels and discussion sessions will examine these and other issues with regard to such diverse areas as human rights and humanitarian intervention, national security, immigration, trade, labor, health care and the environment.

Delighted to see numerous IntLawGrrls contributors on the program: ABILA Vice President Valerie Epps (Suffolk), Chimène Keitner (California-Hastings), Molly Beutz Land (New York Law School), Margaret E. McGuinness (St. John's), Barbara Stark (Hofstra), Jennifer Trahan (NYU), and, of course, ABILA President Ruth Wedgwood (Johns Hopkins).
Registration for the conference, which is free to members of cosponsoring organizations, is here; full program details are here.

Go On! ASIL midyear in Los Angeles

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

November 3, 4, and 5 are the dates of the 2012 Midyear Meeting and Research Forum of the American Society of International Law, to be held in downtown Los Angeles and at UCLA School of Law.
For many years ASIL's Executive Council and the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law convened in Washington, D.C., in the autumn -- about midway between the last ASIL annual meeting and the next. The Los Angeles gathering will entrench a new tradition of convening outside Washington, for an expanded meeting featuring not only the ASIL/AJIL leadership meetings, but also multiple public events aimed at legal practitioners, professor and students, judges, and others interested in international law.
Welcoming attendees at the 2012 Midyear Meeting will be a new initiative: the inaugural Research Forum at which a global array of ASIL members (including, as the photos in this post indicate, many of our own contributors). Chosen from a highly competitive selection process, they will present and invite focused discussion on works in progress.
The Research Forum is the brainchild of IntLawGrrl alumna Laura Dickinson (left) (George Washington) and Kal Raustiala (UCLA).
Working with them on the Forum Planning Committee have been IntLawGrrl alumnae Nienke Grossman (near left) (Baltimore) and Mary Ellen O'Connell (middle left) (Notre Dame), along with our colleague Mark Drumbl (Washington & Lee).
Scheduled highlights for ASIL's 2012 Midyear Meeting (for the full program, click here and here):

Thursday, November 3, California Club, 538 South Flower Street, Los Angeles

5:30-7:30 p.m.
► Panel on Current Issues in International Dispute Resolution, a roundtable discussion featuring IntLawGrrl and ASIL immediate past President Lucy Reed (right) (Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer), ASIL President-Elect Donald F. Donovan (Debevoise & Plimpton), and Edward T. Swaine, (George Washington); moderated by ASIL President David D. Caron (California-Berkeley).

Friday, November 4, UCLA

1:45 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
► Keynote address by International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo (left) (photo credit). A conference luncheon immediately precedes this address.

2:30-3:45 p.m.
► Panel on Emerging Issues in Alien Tort Statute Litigation

2:30-5 p.m.
► ASIL-UCLA Career Fair

4-5:30 p.m.
► Panel on General Counsels’ Perspectives.
► Forum session on Violence and Conflict. Papers to be presented: "Privatized Sovereign Performance, Counter-terrorism, and Endangered Rights" by IntLawGrrl Fiona de Londras (right) (University College Dublin); "Killing in the Fog of War" by Adil Ahmad Haque (Rutgers-Newark), and "From Gender-Based Violence to Women’s Violence in Haiti" by Benedetta Faedi-Duramy (Golden Gate).
► Forum session on Environmental Scarcity and Sustainability. Papers to be presented: "International Law in a Time of Scarcity: The Case of Bluefin Tuna" by Kristen Boon (Seton Hall); "The Perils and Promise of Indicators in Global Governance: A Case Study of Corporate Sustainability Reporting" by Galit Sarfaty (Wharton/Penn); and "Transnational Oil Companies, Indigenous Peoples, and the Local Construction of International Law" by Pablo Rueda (California-Berkeley).
► Forum session on Interpretive Strategies: Statutes, Treaties, and Customary Law. Papers to be presented: "Jurisdictional Standards (and Rules)" by Adam Muchmore (Penn State); "Is Article 38(1) of the ICJ Statute Outmoded? Toward a New Theory of Sources in International Law" by Noora Arajärvi (University of the West Indies); and "Vision and Technique: Accounting for and Justifying Differing Approaches to Treaty Interpretation Over Time" by Julian Arato (NYU).

Friday, November 4, UCLA

9-10:30 a.m.
► Forum session on The Security Council Today and Tomorrow. Papers to be presented: "Shaming Power of the Veto" by IntLawGrrl alumna Saira Mohamed (left) (California-Berkeley); "Variable Multipolarity and UN Security Council Reform" by Bart Szewyczk (WilmerHale); and "Iran, Nuclear Nonproliferation, and the International Atomic Energy Commission" by Aslı Ü. Bâli (UCLA).
► 1st of 2 Forum sessions on New Frameworks in International Economic Law. Papers to be presented: "Models of International Governance: An Examination of International Financial Regulatory Regimes" by Eric Pan (Cardozo); "Testing Reflexive Governance in the Context of the Social Dimension of the Economic Crisis (with a focus on the ILO and the OECD)" by Anne Trebilcock (Centre de droit international, Université de Paris 10 Nanterre); and "Breaking the Frame between Public International Trade and Private International Business" by Sungjoon Cho (Chicago-Kent) and Claire Kelly (Brooklyn).
► Forum session on International Cultural and Intellectual Property. Papers to be presented: "The Globalization of Cultural Property Law" by Lorenzo Casini (University of Kent); "Unpacking Imperialisms: Traditional Knowledge Rights and Wrongs" by Sean A. Pager (Michigan State); and "Democratic Legitimacy and Identity-Based Citizenship" by Natalie Oman (University of Ontario Institute of Technology).
► Forum session on New Developments in International Environmental Law-Making. Papers to be presented: "Artificial Islands in the Persian Gulf and International Environmental Law Principles" by Seyed Mohammad Mehdi (Vermont); "International Environmental Duty to Restore Ecosystems" by IntLawGrrl alumna Anastasia Telesetsky (right) (Idaho); and "Water in Investor-State Arbitration" by Badr Zerhdoud (Georgetown).

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
► 2d of 2 Forum sessions on New Frameworks in International Economic Law. Papers to be presented: "Consumer Protection at the World Trade Organization" by Sonia Elise Rolland (Northeastern); "Expertise and Legitimacy in International Investment Law: Governing Access to Investor-State Arbitration" by Jason Cross (Michigan); and "An Alternative Investment Law Framework?: An Analysis of an Investment Treaty/Contract Hybrid" by Ibironke Odumosu (Saskatchewan).
► Forum session on International Law and Institutions in Africa. Papers to be presented: "Between Adaptation and Emancipation: The African Union and the Project of Global Constitutionalism" by Theresa Reinold (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin); "The Court of Justice for Economic Community of West African States: Building a Human Rights Rule of Law in Africa?" by Laurence R. Helfer (Duke), Karen J. Alter (Northwestern), and Jacqueline McAllister (Northwestern); and "Transitional Justice in the DRC: Insights from the Mobile Courts" by James Wormington (American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative).
► Forum session on Transnational Networks and Normative Orders. Papers to be presented: "Transnational Legal Orders: Their Rise and Impact" by Gregory Shaffer (Minnesota); "Post-conflict Justice Networks" by IntLawGrrl Elena Baylis (left) (Pittsburgh); and "The International Norm of the Rule of Law" by Philip M. Nichols (Wharton/Penn).
► Forum session on American Foreign Relations Law. Papers to be presented: "Treaties and the Constitution" by David Sloss (Santa Clara); "Congressional Control of U.S. Human Rights Policy: An Empirical Examination of Legal and Normative Effects" by IntLawGrrl alumna Margaret McGuinness (near right) (St. John's); and "Between Law and Diplomacy: The 'Suability' of Foreign Officials iin U.S. Courts" by IntLawGrrl alumna Chimène Keitner (far right) (California-Hastings).

2-3:30 p.m.
► Forum session on Bottom-Up Influences in the Development of International Law. Papers to be presented: "International Law from the Bottom Up: Fragmentation and Transformation" by IntLawGrrl alumna Barbara Stark (left) (Hofstra); "Who Mobilizes for Human Rights? International Law, Social Mobilization, and Societal Inequality" by Justin Simeone (NYU); and "Parochial International Law? Assessing the Impact of National Legal Culture" by Marco Benatar (Vrije Universiteit Brussel).
► Forum session on The Politics of International Courts and Tribunals. Papers to be presented: "The New Terrain of International Law: International Courts in Politics" by Karen J. Alter (Northwestern); "The Perverse Effects of Ideology on International Criminal Justice" by
Shahram Dana (John Marshall); and "Are Arbitrators Political?" by Michael Waibel (Cambridge).
► Forum session on International Organization, and the Evolution of Treaty Regimes. Papers to be presented: "The Interplay of Exit and Voice: How Nations Behave in International Regimes" by Erlend M. Leonhandsen (Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law); "Treaty Executives" by IntLawGrrl alumna Jean Galbraith (right) (Pennsylvania); and "An Economic Analysis of International Rulemaking" by Barbara Koremenos (Michigan).
► Forum session on Empire, Global Commodities, and Emerging International Regimes. Papers to be presented: "Sugar and the Making of an Early Modern Multilateral Institution: Explicating the 1902 Brussels Sugar Convention" by Michael Fakhri (Oregon) and "Building an American Legalist Empire, 1898-­1919: the Profession and Diplomacy of International Law" by Benjamin Coates (Columbia).

3:45-5:15 p.m.
► Forum session on Statehood and Self-Determination. Papers to be presented: "The Emergence of Indicators of State Failure and State Fragility: Measuring Stateness?" by Nehal Bhuta (New School); "Somalia and the International Legal Imagination" by Noah Novogrodsky
(Wyoming); and "Self-Determination, Statehood, and Unilateral Declarations of Independence: The Case of Palestine" by Robert P. Barnidge Jr. (Reading).
► Forum session on Compliance and Institutional Design. Papers to be presented: "Supply Side of Compliance" by Rachel Brewster (Harvard); "Best Evidence: The Role of Information in Domestic Judicial Enforcement of International Human Rights Agreements" by Yonatan Lupu (California-San Diego); and "The International Human Rights Regime: Delaying Democratization in the Worst Offenders" by Peter Rosendorff (NYU) and James R. Hollyer (Yale).
► Forum session on Participation and Politics in Post-conflict Justice. Papers to be presented: "International Criminal Law Expressivism and Global Transitional Justice" by IntLawGrrl alumna Margaret de Guzman (left) (Temple); "Unspeakable Memories, Unattainable Truths: Victim-Witness Testimonies in the Khmer Rouge Trials" by Laura Marschner (Zürich); and "Transparency And Amicus Participation In Investor-State Arbitration: An Account of Inter-Dependence, Structural Disincentives and the Democratic Deficit" by Jarrod Wong (Pacific McGeorge).
► Forum session on Hard and Soft Law in International Law and International Relations Theory. Papers to be presented: "International Law and International Relations: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead" by Jeffrey Dunoff (Temple) and Mark Pollack (Temple) and "Soft Law at Work: International Standards and the Design of National Human Rights Institutions" by Katerina Linos (California-Berkeley) and Thomas Pegram (Loyola Maryland).
Registration information, full program, and other details here.

Join ILA's American Branch

(Delighted to welcome back alumna Ruth Wedgwood, who contributes this guest post)

Apart from the diversions of International Law Weekend in New York City October 20-22, 2011, which I described in a post last week, and International Law Weekend MidWest, to be held on September 9, 2011,
we at the International Law Association, American Branch -- sponsor of the International Law Weekends -- would like to invite you to consider becoming a formal member.
Apart from these annual conference activities, the practitioners, academics and diplomats who belong to the American Branch are actively engaged in drafting projects and studies, together with members from the 45 other states that belong to the Association.
The studies of the ILA -- bearing as they do the unique authority of a group founded in 1873, that has truly international membership and international exchanges of views -- are enormously influential. An example is the study by Maurice Mendelson QC on customary international law, which has been widely cited by courts, including the International Court of Justice, and by academic commentators.
Over 25 members of the American Branch of the ILA have recently served on these international committees, including:
► IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Barbara Stark (left), Professor of Law at Hofstra, as chair of the ILA International Family Law committee;
► Christina M. Cerna, Principal Human Rights Specialist at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, as chair of the ILA International Human Rights committee;
► NYU Law Professor Linda J. Silberman, as a U.S. member of the ILA International Civil Litigation committee; and
► Duke Lecturing Fellow Coalter G. Lathrop, as rapporteur of the Law of the Sea Baselines.
Women have played a major role in the organization in other respects, with:
► Professor Christine Chinkin of the London School of Economics as the current headquarters director of studies;
► Professor Catherine Kessedjian of the University of Paris as chair of the International Civil Litigation committee; and
► Professor Laurence Boisson de Chazournes (right) of the Unversity of Geneva as co-chair of the Practice and Procedure of International Tribunals committee.
There are also study committees of the American Branch itself, and its studies are published both in the biennial proceedings of the Branch and will soon be published on the web as well. The American Branch director of studies is IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Andrea K. Bjorklund (left), Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis.
Membership is a value-proposition, with lots of opportunity to break outside the bubble of American views of international Law. Besides, the next Biennial ILA meeting in August 2012 is in Sofia, Bulgaria, the pearl of the Black Sea. The 2014 meeting is set to be held in Japan, and the 2016 meeting in Washington, D.C.
For more information, contact yours truly, Ruth Wedgwood, President of the American Branch of the ILA, at rwedgwood@jhu.edu. Or visit the American Branch website for full details on membership.
We look forward to your participation!

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.

Guest Blogger: Barbara Stark

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Barbara Stark (left) as today's guest blogger.
Barbara is Professor of Law and John DeWitt Gregory Research Scholar at Hofstra University School of Law in Hempstead, New York, having joined that faculty in 2005. This semester she's a Visiting Scholar at Columbia Law School; in the past, she's visited at New England School of Law and the University of West Virginia. She's held leadership positions in the American Society of International Law, the Association of American Law Schools, and the International Law Association.
She holds a B.A. from Cornell University, a J.D. from New York University, and an LL.M. from Columbia University.
Barbara's published widely on matters related to international family law and to women -- not only many chapters and law review articles, but also books, including International Family Law: An Introduction (2005), Global Issues in Family Law (with Iowa Law Professor Ann Laquer Estin, 2007) and Family Law in the World Community: Cases, Materials, and Problems in Comparative and International Family Law (with Tulsa Law Professor D. Marianne Blair et al., 2009).
Barbara discusses her recent scholarship respecting women, poverty, and international economic law in her guest post below.
She dedicates her post to Virginia Leary (below left), the human rights advocate and academic, and a past recipient of the Goler T. Butcher Medal, whose passing IntLawGrrls marked last year. (photo credit) Barbara notes in particular Virginia's

groundbreaking work on economic rights and her generous hospitality, her willingness to invite and include new women in international law.

Today Virginia joins other IntLawGrrls foremothers at the list below our "visiting from..." map at right.

Heartfelt welcome!

For world's women, recession goes on

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this guest post about my scholarship on women and international economic law)

Goldman Sachs may be out of the woods, but the Great Recession is not over for the world’s women.

Will it ever be?

Consider these "Facts & Figures on Women, Poverty & Economics," compiled by UNIFEM, the U.N. Development Fund for Women:

► Women perform 66 percent of the world’s work, produce 50 percent of the food, but earn 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property.
► Women constitute around 60% to 80% percent of the export manufacturing workforce in the developing world, a sector the World Bank expects to shrink significantly during the economic crisis.
► The global economic crisis is expected to plunge a further 22 million women into unemployment, which would lead to a female unemployment rate of 7.4 percent (versus 7 percent of male unemployment).

The chasm between the rich and the poor has become unfathomable.

As a recent U.N. study explains, global wealth is distributed "as if one person in a group of ten takes 99% of the total pie and the others share the remaining 1%." Few argue that this is inevitable or unimportant, but there is little consensus on how to proceed.

What should be done?

Who should do it?

These questions should not be left entirely to politicians, economists, and celebrities.

In a recent article, "Theories of Poverty/The Poverty of Theory," 2009 Brigham Young Law Review 381, I consider the usefulness (or not) of legal theory. The article explains how liberal theories in particular dominate post-Cold War approaches to poverty, as shown in three major legal instruments. It then introduces other theories of poverty, those of liberalism’s 'discontents,' conspicuously absent from post-Cold War discourse. The article concludes by focusing on the limits of theory itself in a liberal international system that has neither the legal muscle to effectively address global poverty nor the political will to develop it.

A second article, "Jam Tomorrow: The Limits of International Economic Law," forthcoming in the Boston College Third World Journal, asks whether existing international economic law -- including the law governing and generated by the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the World Bank -- has the capacity to realize distributive justice. The question takes on special relevance with the election of an American President explicitly committed to reducing economic inequality (at least domestically).

"Distributive justice" is an ambiguous goal. If we simply mean "more fair than what we have now," "distributive justice" is within easy reach, since we could hardly do worse. As a threshold question, accordingly, it should be established what, exactly, is required for actual "distributive justice." I take as a starting point the relatively modest objective of the Millennium Development Goals — to halve the number living in extreme poverty, i.e., subsisting on less than $1 a day, by 2015. As economist Jeffrey Sachs points out, the wealth is still there. It is just a matter of moving it around.

"Jam Tomorrow" argues that this is not going to happen, because:

► 1st, this is not an objective of international economic law; and

► 2d, even if the political will were there, it would not happen because "international economic law" is not a coherent legal subject with the capacity to make it happen. Neoliberalism cannot be relied upon to produce distributive justice, but neoliberalism is not the only game in town.

Constructive alternatives?

Microfinance is fine, but markets are no silver bullet. For further thought, see, for example:

► Human Rights And The Global Marketplace: Economic, Social And Cultural Dimensions, by Jeanne M. Woods, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, and IntLawGrrl Hope Lewis, Northeastern University School of Law;

► Dr. Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago Law School, on the capabilities approach, in her 2001 book Women and Human Development; and

► The brilliant essay on "Exploitation" by Dr. Susan Marks, King's College London, in the 2008 collection that she edited, entitled International Law on the Left.

(credit for photo of food charity in Australia; credit for woman at handloom in India)