On December 2

Depiction of the 1942  nuclear experiment

On this day in ...
... 1942 (70 years ago today), in "a jury-rigged laboratory" on a squash court underneath the Stagg Field bleachers at the University of Chicago, occurred the 1st human-made, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. At the head of this experiment was Enrico Fermi, an Italy-born Nobel laureate in physics who'd fled his homeland a few years earlier, during the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. A coded message from Fermi to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt thus heralded the nuclear era:

'The Italian navigator has landed in the new world.'

Fermi's Manhattan Project breakthrough would advance U.S. efforts to construct an atomic bomb.

(Prior December 2 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

ASIL seeks 2013 Helton Fellows

Pleased to announce that the American Society of International Law is now welcoming applications for its 2013 Arthur C. Helton Fellowships.
Named after a prominent human rights lawyer who died, along with many others, in the 2003 bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, these “micro-grants,” as ASIL calls them, assist law students and young professionals pursue field work and research on significant issues involving international law, human rights, humanitarian affairs, and related areas.
As indicated in these profiles, Fellows have worked all over the world -- Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cambodia, Haiti, Kenya, the Czech Republic, India, Ireland, Egypt, and Ecuador, to name a few countries. IntLawGrrls who have received the fellowship in the past include:
► Dr. Alice Edwards (right) (prior posts), a 2008 Fellow who conducted field work in Liberia and Sierra Leone as part of a women-refugees project of the Human Rights Law Centre, University of Nottingham. Alice is the Head of Legal Section, Division of International Protection, at UNHCR, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland; and
► Christie Edwards (left) (prior posts), a 2010 Fellow who worked with the Association Solidarité Féminine in Casablanca, Morocco. She's the Regional Program Manager for Middle East and North Africa at a D.C.-based women's-rights-as-human-rights NGO, Vital Voices Global Partnership.
Details on the application process are here. the deadline is Monday, January 7, 2013, but applicants are encouraged to submit as soon as they can: in ASIL's words, "[d]ue to administrative constraints, only the first 50 completed applications, submitted on-line, and received in full by the submission deadline will be reviewed."
It's a great program -- to contribute to its funding, donate here -- and as always, this 'Grrl looks forward to reading soon of next year's Helton Fellows.

On December 1

On this day in ...
... 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, police arrested and booked (left) a 42-year-old seamstress who refused to give up her seat on a city bus. (photo credit) The resistance of Rosa Parks to a law that required black persons to relinquish their seats to white persons touched off the Montgomery bus boycott, on which the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., worked with Parks and others. It remains a touchstone event in the United States' 20th C. civil rights movement. IntLawGrrls honor Parks, who died 50 years after this event, as one of our foremothers.

(Prior December 1 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

International Legal Materials advisors sought

The American Society of International Law welcomes applications for service on the Editorial Advisory Committee of International Legal Materials, a bimonthly publication that produces full texts – preceded by commentary –  of important treaties and agreements, judicial and arbitral decisions, national legislation, international organizations resolutions and other documents.
The ILM Editorial Advisory Committee meets every two months at Tillar House, ASIL's Washington headquarters, to select international legal documents to be published in ILM (about which more here).
Persons interested in serving on the Committee are encouraged to apply by sending a curriculum vitae and a brief expression of interest to Djurdja Lazic, ILM Managing Editor, at ilm.eac@asil.org.
Deadline is February 8, 2013.

On November 30

On this day in ...

... 1993, in Ottawa, the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies released a 1,300-page final report, Proceed with Care, the name of which, Proceed with Care signaled the caution with which it perceived its subject. The commission made hundreds of recommendations, for controlling sales of human eggs, for licensing of in vitro fertilization clinics, and for establishing a Canadian regulatory body. That agency, Assisted Human Reproduction Canada, would begin operation in 2004, but is now in a winding-down process, in the wake of a 2010 Canadian Supreme Court decision limiting governmental regulation in this area.

(Prior November 30 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

Palestine news flash: 138 aye, 9 nay, 41 abstain

Cant' access the U.N. website at the moment, but the Guardian's live blog reports that the U.N. General Assembly has just upgraded Palestine's status to nonmember state, placing it on par with the Holy See, but not with the nearly 200 member states of the United Nations.
Here's the reported vote on whether Palestine should be recognized as a nonmember state:

No - 9:
Canada, Czech Republic, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Panama, Palau, United States of America

Abstain - 41:
Albania, Andorra, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Colombia, Croatia, Dem. Rep. of Congo, Estonia, Fiji, Germany, Guatemala, Haiti, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malawi, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Poland, Korea, Moldova, Romania, Rwanda, Samoa, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Togo, Tonga, United Kingdom, Vanuatu

Yes - 138:
Pretty much the rest of the General Assembly's membership.

IntLawGrrls' prior posts on what this change of status means, in the Middle East, at the United Nations, and at organizations like the International Criminal Court,  available here.

On November 29

On this day in ...

... 1752 (260 years ago today), in what then was the British colony of Rhode Island, Jemima Wilkinson was born into a family of Quakers, a religion she too followed. In 1776, during an outbreak of disease, Wilkinson lay feverish and near death – upon recovery she claimed she was a divinely sent preacher.  She eschewed her birth name for the moniker of "Publick Universal Friend," and pursued a career as "a charismatic American evangelist who preached total sexual abstinence and the Ten Commandments to her Quaker 'Society of Universal Friends.'" Thus she became "first American-born woman to found a religious movement." (image credit) Rejected by her community, she and her followers moved to a part of New York never before settled by persons of European ancestry. There she remained until her death in 1819.

(Prior November 29 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

On November 28

On this day in ...
... 1982 (30 years ago today), began a GATT Ministerial Meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. There representatives from 88 countries party to the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Tariffs, reviewed recent failures in that GATT system and endeavored "to launch a major new negotiation." This effort failed over disagreements about agriculture. (credit for photo of U.S. Senators Robert Dole (R-Kansas) and John Danforth (R-Missouri), among others, at this meeting) In hindsight, however, the meeting proved the seed for the Uruguay Round; out of that multiyear round of trade negotiations grew the establishment in 1995 of the World Trade Organization.

(Prior November 28 are here, here, here, here, and here.)

Welcoming a very special guest, Mark Drumbl

It's IntLawGrrls' pleasure today to welcome a very special guest contributor, Dr. Mark Drumbl (right).
Mark's a longtime member of the law faculty at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, where he is the Class of 1975 Alumni Professor and also serves as Director of the Transnational Law Institute. He's also had appointments at a number of law schools in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, and Ireland, as well as the United States.
His teaching and many publications focus on aspects of public international law, including global environmental governance, international criminal law, post-conflict justice, and transnational legal process. He is the author of the just-published Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy, as well as the award-winning Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law (2007).
Mark earned a bachelor's degree from McGill University, a master's from McGill and the Institut d'études politiques de Paris, an LL.B. from the University of Toronto, and his LL.M. and J.S.D. degrees from Columbia Law School. He served as a judicial clerk to Justice Frank Iacobucci of the Supreme Court of Canada, and practiced law in both the private and public sectors.
In his guest post below, Mark applies the lens of the 2011 conviction of Pauline Nyiramasuhuko by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in order to consider the many roles of women in situations of atrocity. His post forms part 2 of IntLawGrrls' 2-part series on women accused of international crimes; here is Part 1, an analysis, by Rosemary Grey and Louise Chappell, of the 2012 International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Simone Gbagbo of Côte d'Ivoire.
Heartfelt welcome!

On November 27

On this day in ...
... 1912 (100 years ago today), the Treaty Between France and Spain Regarding Morocco was concluded. The pact divided Morocco into two protectorates, the larger portion controlled by the French and smaller parcels controlled (ultimately, through a caliph) the Spanish. The contemporary lithograph below claims a civilizing force in North Africa as a result of this European project (along with that of the British in Egypt).

(credit)

It is thus to be noted that part of the Spanish Zone is now known as the contested region of Western Sahara. As posted, for decades since an International Court of Justice decision, Western Sahara has been occupied by the state of Morocco, Morocco having secured a declaration of independence in 1956.

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

'Nuff said

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

'Some say that Clinton diluted her energy and failed to achieve any signature triumphs, such as an end to the Syrian crisis. Others argue that through a thousand lesser-known efforts and initiatives, she has achieved nothing less than a transformative shift toward a more effective and modern American diplomacy.'

–  Reporter Stephanie McCrummen, writing in today's Washington Post about U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. McCrummen's thoughtful survey of Clinton's approach these last 4 years to her position as the United States' top diplomat –  a position from which Clinton has said she soon will resign –  is well worth a read. (credit for State Department photo of Clinton, at right, with Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize and, since this past April, a member of the Parliament of Myanmar)

Welcoming Rosemary Grey & Louise Chappell

It's our great pleasure to welcome Rosemary Grey (right) and Dr. Louise Chappell (left) as IntLawGrrls contributors.
► Rose is a doctoral researcher in the School of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales, Australia. She works on the topic of gender justice in international criminal law, focusing particularly on the prosecution of sexual and gender-based violence at the International Criminal Court. A few months ago, Rose, about whom we've previously posted here, took part in in the 2012 Hague Symposium Post-Conflict Transitions & International Justice; in 2011, she was a Hague-based intern for the International Bar Association.
► Louise, about whom we've previously posted here, is a Professor in the School of Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales (she is Rose's Ph.D. supervisor), as well as an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. As reflected by her many publications, her primary research areas are women’s rights, gender and politics from a comparative and international perspective, public policy and federalism. She is working on a book on gender justice at the ICC, to be published by Oxford University Press.
Earlier this year, both Rose and Louise were involved in convening at the university an event on which we then posted: Justice for All? The International Criminal Court - A 10 year Review Conference on the ICC, as well as a workshop on Gender Justice and the ICC for delegates of women's organizations.
Their introductory post below is prompted by Thursday's announcement that the ICC has issued a warrant for the arrest of Simone Gbagbo, Vice President of the Ivorian Popular Front, a political party founded in 1982 by Laurent Gbagbo, who served as President of Côte d'Ivoire from 2000 until he – and she, his wife – were arrested. He has been in ICC custody for a year; it is not clear how the current CdI government will respond to the ICC warrant against her. In their post today, Rose and Louise consider the implications of the case against Simone Gbagbo, the 1st woman charged by the ICC; tomorrow, IntLawGrrls' 2-part series on women accused will feature a post in which guest contributor Mark Drumbl analyzes the recent conviction of the only woman prosecuted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Joining IntLawGrrls contributor Katie O'Byrne in their choice of a transnational foremother, Rosemary and Louise write:

Jessie Street at the United Nations

'We dedicate our entry to Jessie Street (1889-1970), an Australian activist, who was a prominent member of the international peace movement. Jessie founded the United Associations of Women, Australia in 1929 which was part of the International Alliance of Women, and which lobbied the League of Nations in Geneva on women's rights. As the sole woman on the Australian delegation to the 1945 founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco, Jessie was instrumental in having a permanent Commission on the Status of Women established within the United Nations, separate from the Human Rights Commission. She was CSW’s first Vice President.
'At home Jessie was an advocate for equality of status for women, equal pay, the rights of women to retain their jobs after marriage, appointment of women to public office and their election to Parliament. She was also worked to address the plight of Jewish refugees, and campaigned for the elimination of discrimination of Australia’s indigenous people.'

Heartfelt welcome!

Simone Gbagbo & the International Criminal Court: The unsettling spectre of the female war criminal

(Our thanks for the opportunity to contribute this introductory post, the 1st of a 2-part IntLawGrrls series on women accused of international crimes. Part 2 is here.)

Simone Gbagbo

The International Criminal Court has unsealed a warrant for the arrest of Simone Gbagbo, whose husband, Laurent Gbagbo, President of Côte d'Ivoire from 2000 to 2011, has been in ICC custody since last November.
The warrant, unsealed Thursday, described Simone Gbagbo as the suspected indirect co-perpetrator of crimes against humanity – namely, murder, rape and other sexual violence, inhumane acts, and persecution – allegedly committed in Côte d'Ivoire from 16 December 2010 to 12 April 2011. Consistent with the most basic of fair trial rights, Gbagbo's innocence must be presumed unless she is convicted following a fair and impartial trial; however, the issuance of the warrant is noteworthy for several reasons.
► First, there is the fact that Côte d'Ivoire is not a state party to the ICC, although it has accepted the jurisdiction of the Court for a finite period.
In 2011, Pre-Trial Chamber III approved Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s request to use his propio motu powers to open an investigation into crimes committed in Côte d'Ivoire since 28 November 2010. In February 2012, the Chamber authorized an expansion of the investigation by the Court back to 2002. (The unsealed warrant, issued by the Chamber composed of Presiding Judge Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi along with Judges Elizabeth Odio Benito and Adrian Fulford, is dated 29 February 2012.) Cases stemming from investigations into the Côte d’Ivoire situation, including the potential case against Simone Gbagbo, are therefore creating an important precedent for the Court in engaging with a non-party state, albeit one that has accepted the ICC’s jurisdiction.
► The warrant is also in itself groundbreaking.
Simone Gbagbo is the first woman to potentially face charges before the ICC. Should her case go to trial she will be one of a very few women charged in the history of international tribunals. (Prior IntLawGrrls post)
No women were tried in the first proceedings at Nuremberg and Tokyo, although, as Diane Marie Amann has posted, numerous women stood trial in subsequent post-World War II proceedings. Recent ad hoc tribunals have tried just two women: the Yugoslavia tribunal convicted Bosnian Serb politician Biljana Plavšić of persecution as a crime against humanity, while the Rwanda tribunal convicted a former Rwandan government minister, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, of genocide and crimes against humanity (including rape). An effort to prosecute a woman leader, Ieng Thirith, before the Cambodia tribunal has ended because she suffers from dementia.
► The relative novelty of the arrest warrant against Simone Gbagbo – and any future case against her – is important because it disrupts the “normal” gender archetypes in international criminal law, thereby making those archetypes suddenly visible.
Charging a woman with international crimes sparks questions about gender that we seldom ask when the subject of the proceedings is a man. It illuminates long-held assumptions embedded in law and in society about who the “normal” suspects/accused in international crimes are. It undermines the usual view of men as the agents and women as the victims of crime. It challenges the dichotomy that sets up men, masculinity and violence on one side and women, femininity and passivity on the other. It upsets the archetype of women as vulnerable, ‘rapeable’, and incapable of wielding power.

Laurent Gbagbo and Simone Gbagbo

The fact that Gbagbo is facing possible charges of crimes related to sexual violence will further challenge presumptions about power relations not only between men and women but also amongst each sex.
Should this case get to trial, the ensuing ICC case law has the potential to unsettle our assumptions about men’s and women’s roles in conflict situations.
► At the same time, any case against Simone Gbagbo could also serve to reinforce gender stereotypes.

On November 26

Dr. Ruth Patrick in the field

On this day in ...
... 1907 (105 years ago today), in Topeka, Kansas, Dr. Ruth Patrick was born into a family led by a banker-lawyer father whose training and passion were in the field of botany. The father and his young daughters frequently went on weekend nature expeditions. Patrick would be educated 1st in Kansas City, then in South Carolina, and ultimately in Virginia, earning her Ph.D. from UVA in 1934. She is known for her aquatic ecology research, centered on the algae group known as diatoms – through her research she made important discoveries respecting the history of areas such as the Virginia-North Carolina Great Dismal Swamp and the Utah Great Salt Lake. Patrick earned many awards, and was further honored by establishment of the Ruth Patrick Science Education Center in Aiken, South Carolina.

(Prior November 26 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

Will Obama warm to Doha action?

'At Doha, negotiators will be looking for signs of how Obama plans to put his climate mission in action.'

So writes Suzanne Goldenberg, the D.C.-based U.S. environmental correspondent for Britain's Guardian newspaper, in an article speculating on what the United States might say and do at the 18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Goldenberg notes that climate change garnered more attention in the weeks before the re-election of President Barack Obama, not in the least because of the damage wreaked by Hurricane Sandy. Obama referred to this renewal of interest in the early-morning victory speech (photo credit & video clip) that he delivered on November 7, when he said:

'We want our children to live in an America that isn't burdened by debt, that isn't weakened up by inequality, that isn't threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.'

Whether and how that aspiration translates into action are the questions of the day for the Doha 2012 Climate Change Conference, which will begin in the Qatari capital just a couple hours from now and continue through December 7.

'Nuff said

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

'Shark fins do not constitute a traditional ingredient of the European diet, but sharks do constitute a necessary element of the Union’s marine ecosystem; therefore, their management and conservation, as well as, in general, the promotion of a sustainably managed fishing sector for the benefit of the environment and of the people working in the sector, should be a priority.'

– One of several amendments aimed at stiffening the ban on removal of fins of sharks aboardship, which the European Parliament adopted Thursday. A 2003 ban on the practice had been riddled with loopholes, prompting Rapporteur Maria do Céu Patrão Neves (right), a European Parliament member from Portugal, to propose the amendments just adopted, the full text of which may be found at pp. 104-10 of the document available here. (photo credits here and here) As posted, efforts to restrict shark finning appear to be on the rise.

On November 25

On this day in ...
... 1867 (145 years ago today), Alfred Nobel patented dynamite. Born in Sweden 34 years earlier, Nobel had begun his career as an industrialist, a maker of bridges and other structures – the construction of which often required blasting through rock, a requirement that led Nobel to the experiments out of which dynamite was created. On this day he secured U.S. patent number 78,317 for his invention, the destructive power of which he continued to improve. ( photo credit) Used in times of war and peace alike, the invention left him with an immense fortune. In the will he signed on this same date in 1895 in Paris (28 years to the day after he'd obtained the patent), Nobel funded the establishment of annual Nobel Prizes, to be apportioned as follows:

'one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.'

This development was due in no small part to an abundance of correspondence with Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner (right), who worked briefly as a secretary for Nobel, and then, as detailed in this fascinating account, wrote Nobel frequently, advocating her campaign for global peace. (photo credit) In 1905, 9 years after Nobel's death, she would become the 1st woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

(Prior November 25 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

'Nuff said

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

'No one has sat back to say, "What are our objectives?" ... The model has become, we will go to dangerous places and transform them, and we will do it from secure fortresses. And it doesn’t work.'

– Prudence Bushnell, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Kenya on Aug. 7, 1998, the date of the bombings of U.S. embassies there and in Tanzania that killed more than 200 persons and injured more than 4,000. Bushnell was quoted in a Sunday New York Times article by veteran reporter Robert F. Worth, the online title of which is "Can American Diplomacy Ever Come Out of Its Bunker?" Occasioning these questions, of course, is the attack in Benghazi this past September 11 that left Christopher Stevens, U.S. Ambassador to Libya, and 3 others dead. (prior post) More than 2 months later, officials and pundits in Washington continue to pursue blame for a perceived failure, as Worth reports. He offers an alternative account, quoting numerous U.S. diplomats who fear that exponentially stepped-up security – 150 security officers in 1985, 900 today – will prevent diplomats from engaging in the kinds of cultural exchanges long seen as the heart of their jobs. (credit for 2002 photo of Bushnell, at left, talking with a mother at a nutrition center, in her subsequent posting as U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala)

On November 24

On this day in ...

(credit)

... 1859, in Britain, a scientific study called On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was published. It set forth a theory of evolution developed by its author, Charles Darwin. He drew on work of earlier scientists and on evidence he'd gathered during an 1830s voyage to sites such as the Galapagos Islands on the HMS Beagle. is published in England. The theory was controversial then and since. Indeed, as followers of the last U.S. election cycle well know, evolution continues to inspire debate – in this 'Grrl's own congressional district, Darwin garnered 4,000 write-in votes following a widely viewed anti-evolution speech by the incumbent member of Congress, who ran otherwise unopposed in November. (Big Bird got a few write-in nods, too.)

(Prior November 24 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

On November 23

On this day in ...

(credit)

... 2002 (10 years ago today), an attempt to bring the glitz of the Miss World beauty pageant to Nigeria's capital, Abuja, ended after extensive rioting by Muslim youths opposed to the show left more than 100 people dead and 500 injured," according to the BBC. Before demonstrations ended, more than 200 persons died. Pageant plans also had irked campaigners against the stoning sentence levied against Amina Lawal, was cancelled. A woman from Turkey would be crowned Miss World 2 weeks later, in London.

(Prior November 23 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)