Monday, January 17, 2011

IntLawGrrls

IntLawGrrls

Guest Blogger: Erin Daly

Posted: 17 Jan 2011 04:30 AM PST

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Erin Daly (left) as today's guest blogger.
Erin is Professor of Law and Associate Dean of Faculty Research and Development at Widener Law School in Wilmington, Delaware. She earned her B.A. from Wesleyan University and her J.D. cum laude from the University of Michigan, then practiced 1st Amendment and employment law at the San Francisco law firm of Cooper White & Cooper.
Since entering academia in 1993, she's produced many publications on comparative environmental law, constitutional law, and transitional justice, among them Reconciliation in Divided Societies: Finding Common Ground (2006), for which a Nobel Peace Prizewinner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, wrote the foreword. Co-authoring the book (issued in paperback in 2010) with Erin was Jeremy Sarkin, the South African legal expert about whom we posted yesterday.
Erin has served as a Vice-Chair of the Young Lawyer's Division Law and Media Committee of the American Bar Association. Earlier this month, Erin was elected the Chair of the Section on International Human Rights of the Association of American Law Schools (a position that IntLawGrrl Christiana Ochoa held a while back). In her guest post below, Erin recaps the Section's "new voices" programs during AALS' 2010 annual meeting, discusses Section plans, and welcomes suggestions for the coming year.
Erin dedicates her post to Coretta Scott King (1927-2006), about whom we IntLawGrrls have frequently posted. She was, of course, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (prior posts) -- and she was also a civil rights and human rights activist in her own right. Today the United States observes Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. It is, as Erin writes, a holiday that Coretta Scott King

named in honor of her husband, but which is really a testament to her own lifelong commitment to making the world a better place through service to others and to holding up ideals of equality and human dignity, whether in the context of literacy, poverty eradication, or the rights of minorities of all kinds in the United States and abroad. She took on each new challenge with grace and intelligence and continued throughout her life to push for greater rights for all.

(source for 1984 Charles Tasnadi/AP photo of her leading a picket of South African embassy in Washington, D.C.) Today we are honored to include Coretta Scott King in our list of foremothers just below the "visiting from..." map at right.


Heartfelt welcome!

AALS human rights section news

Posted: 17 Jan 2011 03:00 AM PST

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

As the new Chair of the Section on International Human Rights of the Association of American Law Schools, I want to welcome everyone to the section and invite you to become active members.
We had a terrific session earlier this month at the AALS annual meeting, on which IntLawGrrls posted here and here.
Featured at our section's session were 8 "new voices" in human rights.
► In the first part, presenters spoke on specific current issues in international human rights law. Jena Martin Amerson (West Virginia) (left) examined the role of transnational corporations as bystanders under international law in order to move towards a better working theory of corporate accountability. Angela B. Cornell (Cornell) (left) approached the human rights responsibilities of corporations from a different angle, suggesting that private international agreements might provide opportunities to encourage corporate entities to take more responsibility toward the individuals and communities in which they operate. Benedetta Faedi Duramy (Golden Gate) (left) spoke about the ways in which women are victims of violence can become perpetrators of violence, exploring the reasons why women commit violence, based on her research in Haiti; and Jonathan Todres (Georgia State) emphasized the importance of listening to and working directly with children who are the victims of human rights abuses so that we can better understand the challenges they face.
► In the second part of the session, we focused on implementation issues. David Baluarte (American) spoke about state implementation of regional human rights bodies, with particular emphasis on the Inter-American system. IntLawGrrls alumna Alexandra Huneeus (Wisconsin) (near right) followed David's presentation up by looking more closely at which institutions within the domestic government are responsible for implementing orders from the Inter-American Court; Alexandra further made recommendations to encourage greater enforcement of regional court orders. Austen Parrish (Southwestern) argued that globalization and territorial governance can be consistent in the field of human rights. And IntLawGrrls alumna Caroline Bettinger-López (above, far right) described a collaborative effort among several human rights clinical faculty using lessons of critical theory to offer a proposed shift in human rights lawyering and advocacy; that is, a shift from identifying the immediate circumstances of human rights violations to articulating the structural realities that serve as the framework for those violations, and incorporating victims'/clients' voices and goals into the advocacy.
The Executive Committee of the Section comprises William V. Dunlap (Quinnipiac), Michèle Alexandre (Mississippi) (near left), Stuart Ford (John Marshall), immediate past Chair Sarah Paoletti (Penn) (far left) and me. Right now we are working on:
► Setting the communications platform which we hope to develop as a list-serv for faculty members interested in human rights law; and
► Establishing a mentoring project to help new faculty members who are just starting to teach in this area.
Watch for announcements about these projects, as well as plans for the 2012 annual meeting, to be held in January in Washington, D.C.
Most of all, we welcome suggestions, comments or any other expressions of interest. So please contact one of us to share your thoughts.

On January 17

Posted: 17 Jan 2011 01:04 AM PST

On this day in ...
... 1861 (150 years ago today), despite freezing weather, hundreds rallied in Montreal to protest a Toronto court's acquiescence to American demands for the return of an escaped slave accused of killing a man. The accused, John Anderson (left), was among the estimated 20,000 escapees who'd fled to Canada since the 1850 enactment of a strict U.S. requiring northern states to return slaves. (photo credit) On appeal, another court would permit Anderson to remain in Canada.


(Prior January 17 posts are here, here, and here.)
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