Month: December 2016

Join Wald, Dudziak, many more at IntLawGrrls conference here: Call for papers deadline extended to Jan. 9

With thanks to all of you who’ve already submitted proposals for IntLawGrrls! 10th Birthday Conference here at the University of Georgia School of Law, we’re pleased both to extend the call for papers deadline till Monday, January 9, and to report on how the conference is shaping up:

► Festivities will begin on Thursday, March 2, 2017. That afternoon, from 3:30 to 5 p.m., Georgia Law’s Women Law Students Association will host the 35th annual Edith House Lecture, featuring Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Our conference will open the same evening, at 7 p.m. at Ciné, with a screening of “500 Years,” Pamela Yates’ documentary about Guatemala set to premiere at the January 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Following the screening will be a conversation with Yates, the film’s director and an IntLawGrrls contributor, and with the producer, Paco de Onís.

► A feature of the next day – the Friday, March 3 Research Forum – will be a plenary panel on “strategies to promote women’s participation in shaping international law and policy amid the global emergence of antiglobalism.” Among the speakers of this still-in-formation panel will be these IntLawGrrls contributors:

  • waldHonorable Patricia M. Wald, who’s currently serving by Presidential appointment on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and who’s career has included service as a Judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and as Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit;
  • dudziakEmory Law Professor Mary Dudziak, a legal historian of the post-World War II era and the new President of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Law; and
  • bvsConference co-organizer and Stanford Law Visiting Professor Beth Van Schaack, an expert in international criminal law and the laws of war and former Deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues in the Office of Global Criminal Justice of the U.S. Department of State.

► Filling the balance of Friday, March 3 (before, that is, our evening conference dinner) will be Research Forum presentations by panelists drawn from our call for papers. We’re delighted to extend the deadline for such proposals till Monday, January 9 – and to report that several dozen proposals already have been submitted (and many already accepted, on a rolling basis).

  • They’ve come not only from the United States – California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. – but also, in keeping with our global reach, from Canada, France, Hong Kong, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
  • Expertise is multidisciplinary – among those submitting are policymakers, clinicians and center directors, NGO representatives, students, and professors, in law, psychology, history, political science/international relations, anthropology.
  • Topics are global, too, treating issues in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Caribbean,  and Europe: the economy (comparative corporate law, corporate social responsibility, international trade); the environment (environmental protection, climate change, gender empowerment); rights (human rights, reproductive rights, women’s rights); humanitarian law and peace and security (genocide, global and human security, terrorism, lethal autonomous weapons); international organizations (enforcement mechanisms like the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court, plus U.N. responsibility related to the Haiti cholera outbreak);  international law theory (role of civil society, feminist approaches to international law (in French and English); law enforcement (policing youth, evidence-gathering); armed conflict/postconflict (reparations, the Cold War); and sex and gender (women’s participation in international judging, warfare, and religious practice, as well as issues related to sexual and gender-based violence).

We welcome your participation, too. Click for more information and to submit a proposal.

(Cross-posted from IntLawGrrls)

Women’s leadership in academia focus of Georgia Law session January 5 during AALS meeting in San Francisco

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Accompanying us to San Francisco will be this Georgia WILL banner. It depicts Edith House, co-valedictorian of the Georgia Law Class of 1925 and Florida’s 1st woman U.S. Attorney. Our Women Law Students Association hosts a lecture in her honor each year; slated to speak at the 35th annual Edith House Lecture, on March 2, 2017, is Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Women’s roles will be the focus of the University of Georgia School of Law Roundtable Discussion on Women’s Leadership in Legal Academia from 5:30-6:30 p.m. Thursday, January 5, 2017, at the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools in San Francisco.

This brainstorming session for women law professors, clinicians, or librarians  who are or are interested in becoming administrators within law schools and universities at large. Among other things, we’ll explore whether there’s interest in a sustained project to foster women’s leadership in legal academia, and if so, what should be the contours of that project.

Taking part in the discussion will be 4 Georgia Law administrators: Lori A. Ringhand, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and  J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law; Usha Rodrigues, Associate Dean for Faculty Development and M.E. Kilpatrick Chair of Corporate Finance & Securities Law; Carol A. Watson, Director of the Alexander Campbell King Law Library; and yours truly, Diane Marie Amann, Associate Dean for International Programs & Strategic Initiatives and Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law. Also featured will be Monika Kalra Varma, an executive leadership consultant who served for the last five years as Executive Director of the District of Columbia Bar Pro Bono Program.

We’ll be hosting a reception as part of the discussion, and look forward to conversation with many of our counterparts throughout the AALS community. And we welcome the cosponsorship of the AALS Section on Women in Legal Education.

This event is part of our law school’s ongoing initiative, Georgia WILL (Georgia Women in Law Lead). It began in August with a celebration of the centenary date on which the legislature authorized women to practice law in Georgia, and has continued with lectures by Georgia Law alumnae and other prominent women; among them, a federal judge, a former U.N. High Commissioner of Human Rights, and a corporate general counsel. The January 5 session will kick off a half dozen spring semester Georgia WILL events.

AALS-goers interested in the subject are most welcome to take part in the January 5 discussion/reception, to be held in Yosemite C, a room in the Ballroom Level of the AALS conference hotel, the Hilton San Francisco Union Square, 333 O’Farrell Street. Please join us, and please feel free to forward this notice to interested colleagues.

For more information, e-mail ruskintlaw@uga.edu.

Georgia Law scholar quoted in EJIL: Talk! symposium on ICC, gender justice

politicsWhat a welcome surprise to read words I penned a few years ago quoted-within-a-quote in a post today at EJIL: Talk! To be precise, Washington & Lee Law Professor Mark Drumbl wrote:

“Gender justice initiatives at the ICC remain entwined with other advocacy movements. Notable in this regard is the push for children’s rights. The pairing of women’s rights with children’s rights – while perhaps seeming somewhat odd – does reflect the historical association, in Diane Marie Amann’s words (cited by Chappell), of ‘women and children as bystanders, beings not fully conscious of the world around them’ within the Grotian Weltanschauung.”

The quote, from my essay “The Post-Postcolonial Woman or Child,” appears in Drumbl’s contribution to a terrific EJIL: Talk! symposium analyzing The Politics of Gender Justice at the International Criminal Court (Oxford University Press 2015), an important book by Louise A. Chappell (below right), Professor and Australian Research Council Future Fellow, School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

chappellChappell (who, like Drumbl, is an IntLawGrrls contributor) traces her subject through chapters that “represent,” “recognize,” “redistribute,” and “complement” gender justice at the ICC, an institution that “nested” “gender advocacy,” as Drumbl puts it in his review, entitled “Gender Justice and International Criminal Law: Peeking and Peering Beyond Stereotypes.” He adds: “In short: her superb book is a must-read.”

Joining Drumbl in this symposium are:

► An opening post by EJIL: Talk! Associate Editor Helen McDermott, a post-doctoral Research Fellow in law and armed conflict in the Oxford Martin School Programme on Human Rights for Future Generations at the University of Oxford, England.

► An introduction by Chappell, who is due to close the conversation later this week (latter post now available here).

► “Beyond a Recitation of Sexual Violence Provisions: A Mature Social Science Evaluation of the ICC” by Patricia Viseur Sellers, who serves as the International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s Special Adviser for Prosecution Strategies, is a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, Oxford University, and the former Legal Advisor for Gender and Acting Senior Trial Attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

► “Gender Justice Legacies at the ICC” by yet another IntLawGrrls contributor, Valerie Oosterveld, Associate Dean (Research and Graduate Studies), Associate Professor, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction, University of Western Ontario Faculty of Law, London, Ontario, Canada.

To crib from Drumbl’s post, the series is a must-read.

(Cross-posted from Diane Marie Amann)

Pamela Yates’ new Guatemala film “500 Years” to screen at IntLawGrrls conference in March at Georgia Law

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A very special film event will open IntLawGrrls! 10th Birthday Conference, the global gathering we’re very pleased to host this spring.

On the evening of Thursday, March 2, 2017, the conference will begin with a screening of “500 Years,” a documentary about Guatemala. This Athens, Georgia, screening – taking place just weeks after the film’s premiere at the 2017 Sundance Festival – will feature a conversation with its award-winning director, Pamela Yates (below), and producer, Paco de Onís. Yates, who describes herself as “an American filmmaker and human rights defender,” has posted on her work at IntLawGrrls (see here and here), which is celebrating a decade as the pre-eminent international law blog written primarily by women.

yates_pamela“500 Years” concludes a Guatemala trilogy begun with “When the Mountains Tremble” (1983) and “Granito: How to Nail a Dictator” (2011), As described at the Skylight Pictures website:

“From a historic genocide trial to the overthrow of a president, ‘500 Years’ tells a sweeping story of mounting resistance played out in Guatemala’s recent history, through the actions and perspectives of the majority indigenous Mayan population, who now stand poised to reimagine their society.”

On Friday, March 3, 2017, IntLawGrrls! 10th Birthday Conference will continue with the daylong Research Forum at the University of Georgia School of Law Dean Rusk International Law Center.  As introduced in prior posts, this Forum will feature presentations by international law academics, practitioners, and policymakers, plus a plenary panel on “strategies to promote women’s participation in shaping international law and policy amid the global emergence of antiglobalism.”

This IntLawGrrls event is part of the law school’s Georgia Women in Law Lead (Georgia WILL) initiative and of the Global Georgia Initiative of the university’s Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. Additional conference cosponsors include Georgia Law’s Women Law Students Association and International Law Society, the American Society of International Law and ASIL’s Women in International Law Interest Group, and the Planethood Foundation.

Details on the conference are at the webpage containing the call for papers (deadline January 1, 2017).

(Cross-posted from IntLawGrrls. Credit for Skylight Pictures’ photo above, by Daniel Hernández-Salazar; source for photo of Yates)

Travel grants to help students and early-career persons take part in IntLawGrrls! 10th Birthday Conference

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A scene from IntLawGrrls’ last conference, “Women in International Criminal Law,” October 29, 2010, at the American Society of International Law

Delighted to announce that we will be able to make it easier for some students or very-early-career persons whose papers are accepted for “IntLawGrrls! 10th Birthday Conference” to take part in this daylong celebration.

Thanks to the generosity of the Planethood Foundation, we have established a fund that will provide small grants to help defray the costs of travel to and accommodation at our conference, to be held March 3, 2017, at the Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law, Athens, Georgia USA. The law school is hosting as part of its Georgia Women in Law Lead initiative.

We’re pleased too to announce two additional conference cosponsors: the American Society of International Law and ASIL’s Women in International Law Interest Group (WILIG).

As detailed in our call for papers/conference webpage and prior posts, organizers Diane Marie Amann, Beth Van Schaack, Jaya Ramji-Nogales, and Kathleen A. Doty welcome paper proposals from academics, students, policymakers, and advocates, in English, French, or Spanish, on all topics in international, comparative, foreign, and transnational law and policy.

In addition to paper workshops, there will be at least one plenary panel, on “strategies to promote women’s participation in shaping international law and policy amid the global emergence of antiglobalism.”

The deadline for submissions will be January 1, 2017. Students or very-early-career person who would like to be considered for one of these grants to help defray travel costs are asked to indicate this in their submissions. Papers will be accepted on a rolling basis – indeed, we’ve already received several – so we encourage all to submit as soon as they are able.

For more information, see the call for papers or e-mail doty@uga.edu.

(Cross-posted from IntLawGrrls)

FT profiles alumna Ertharin Cousin’s continued efforts to end hunger

cousin-1Among our most distinguished Georgia Law alumnae is Ertharin Cousin, who earned her Juris Doctor degree in 1982. She has served since 2012 as the Executive Director of the United Nations’ World Food Programme – an appointment that followed service as a U.S. ambassador on food insecurity issues. Based at the 53-year-old Programme’s headquarters in Rome, Italy, Cousin leads the world’s largest humanitarian organization: its 11,000-plus staffers combat hunger and food insecurity on behalf of more than 80 million persons in 82 countries.

The London-based Financial Times acquainted its readers with Cousin earlier this month, featuring her in a “Q&A with Ertharin Cousin” in its FT Weekend Magazine. Amid a mix of personal and professional topics, Cousin noted that she was a member of the 1st class of girls at Chicago’s Lane Tech High School and an undergraduate at the University of Illinois before becoming a law student at the University of Georgia. Asked about politics, she said:

“Everyone should recognise the importance of the political process and the election of good people, regardless of party, who can represent the vulnerable.”

Her greatest achievement?

“When the conflict began in South Sudan, two and a half, three years ago, the NGO community, working together, avoided a famine.”

Continuing ambition?

“Ending hunger. The mission of most of my adult life has been giving people access to affordable, nutritious food wherever they are.”

We at Georgia Law were honored to welcome Cousin as the keynote speaker at the 2013 symposium of our Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law (pictured above), and we look forward to March 2017, when our Law School Association will give her a Distinguished Service Scroll Award.

ICC Prosecutor’s Policy on Children, an international criminal justice capstone

Children have become the unwilling emblems of armed conflict and extreme violence.

Searing images have surfaced in news stories, aid workers’ alerts, and rights groups’ dispatches: a 5 year old pulled from Aleppo rubble, orphans at a Goma children’s center, a young Colombian woman struggling to readjust after years as a child soldier, and, face down on a Turkish beach, a drowned 3-year-old refugee. Images of this nature were shown yesterday at the International Criminal Court, during the opening statement in Ongwen, with Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda herself warning “that some of these images are extremely disturbing.”

There is no better time than now to press for strategies both to combat such harms and to bring the persons responsible to justice. Presenting an important step toward those goals is the Policy on Children of the International Criminal Court Office of the Prosecutor.

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Prosecutor Bensouda launched the Policy on Children at an event during last month’s meeting of the ICC Assembly of States Parties. Bensouda quoted from the U.N. expert Graça Machel’s pathbreaking 1996 report on children and armed conflict, then commented:

“[I]t is indeed unconscionable that we so clearly and consistently see children’s rights attacked and that we fail to defend them.
“It is unforgivable that children are assaulted, violated, murdered and yet our conscience is not revolted nor our sense of dignity challenged. This represents a fundamental crisis of our civilisation and a failure of our humanity.
“By adopting the Policy on Children, which we launch today, we at the Office of the Prosecutor seek to ensure that children suffering the gravest injustices are not ignored. That through the vector of the law, we do what we can to protect and advance the rights of children within the framework of the Rome Statute.”

Leading the event was journalist Zeinab Badawi. Among the many others who offered live or video interventions were: Mamadou Ismaël Konaté, Mali’s Minister of Justice and Human Rights of the Republic of Mali; Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights; Leila Zerrougui, Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict; Angelina Jolie, Special Envoy of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees; Nobel Peace Prizewinner Leymah Gbowee; Lieutenant General Roméo-Dallaire, Founder of the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative (see also IntLawGrrls post by Kirsten Stefanik); Marc Dullaert, Founder of KidsRights and the Netherlands’ former Children’s Ombudsman; and Coumba Gawlo, U.N. Development Programme Goodwill Ambassador and National Goodwill Ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

screen2I am honored also to have offered brief remarks – and am especially honored to have assisted in the preparation of this Policy in my capacity as the Prosecutor’s Special Adviser on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict, working alongside a dedicated Office of the Prosecutor team led by Shamila Batohi, Gloria Atiba Davies, and Yayoi Yamaguchi. Preparation included experts’ gatherings at the University of Georgia School of Law Dean Rusk International Law Center, at Leiden Law School, and at the ICC itself, as well as consultations around the globe with young persons who had endured armed conflict. (Legal research produced by my students, in seminars on Children & International Law and through the work of the Georgia Law Project on Armed Conflict & Children, also was invaluable.)

The result is a Policy on Children spanning 47 pages, published simultaneously in Arabic, English, French, Spanish, and Swahili. Identifying children as persons under eighteen (paragraph 16), it covers a gamut of issues related to children and the work of the Prosecutor; for example, general policy, regulatory framework, and engagement with children at all stages of the proceedings. Among many other landmarks, the Policy:

► Embraces a child-sensitive approach grounded in the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty ratified by every U.N. member state save one: the United States, which is also an ICC nonparty state. (My remarks happily noted that my other state of citizenship, the Republic of Ireland, is a state party to both the Child Rights Convention and the ICC’s Rome Statute.) Paragraph 22 of the Policy on Children thus states:

“In light of the foregoing, the Office will adopt a child-sensitive approach in all aspects of its work involving children. This approach appreciates the child as an individual person and recognises that, in a given context, a child may be vulnerable, capable, or both. The child-sensitive approach requires staff to take into account these vulnerabilities and capabilities. This approach is based on respect for children’s rights and is guided by the general principles of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child: non-discrimination; the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and the right to express one’s views and have them considered.”

► Views children, like all human beings, as multi-faceted individuals and, simultaneously, as members of multi-generational communities. (See, for example, paragraph 100.) Paragraph 25 states:

“Children, by the very fact of their youth, are frequently more vulnerable than other persons; at certain ages and in certain circumstances, they are dependent on others. Notwithstanding any vulnerability and dependence, children possess and are continuously developing their own capacities – capacities to act, to choose and to participate in activities and decisions that affect them. The Office will remain mindful, in all aspects of its work, of the evolving capacities of the child.”

► Acknowledges in paragraph 17 “that most crimes under the Statute affect children in various ways, and that at times they are specifically targeted” – and then pledges that “the Office will, in order to capture the full extent of the harm suffered, seek to highlight the multi-faceted impact on children, at all stages of its work.” The regulatory framework thus enumerates a range of crimes against and affecting children:

  • recruitment and use by armed forces and armed groups of children under fifteen as war crimes (paragraphs 39-43);
  • forcible transfer of children and prevention of birth as acts of genocide (paragraphs 44-46);
  • trafficking of children as a form of enslavement constituting a crime against humanity (paragraphs 47-48);
  • attacks on buildings dedicated to education and health care as war crimes (paragraph 49);
  • torture and related war crimes and crimes against humanity (paragraph 50);
  • persecution as a crime against humanity (paragraph 50); and
  • sexual and gender-based violence as war crimes and crimes against humanity (paragraph 52).

► Details the Office’s plan for applying the child-sensitive approach, with respect both to all stages of proceedings, including preliminary examinations, investigations, and prosecutions, and to cooperation and external relations, institutional development, and implementation.

Even as cases involving crimes against and affecting children, like Ongwen, go forward, the Office is working on implementation of its new Policy on Children. The implementation phase will include developing versions of the Policy accessible to children. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to contribute this phase – and to hearing others’ views on the Policy.

(Cross-posted from Diane Marie Amann)

National Jurist magazine features Georgia Law LL.M. alum Tobias Henke

henkecompThe new edition of the magazine National Jurist features a recent stellar graduate: Tobias Henke, who earned his Georgia Law LL.M., or Master of Laws, degree in 2015.

Henke, who earned his undergraduate law degree from Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany, is now back in Frankfurt, practicing as an Associate in the Capital Markets Group of the international law firm Taylor Wessing.

As described on p. 34 of National Jurist’s Fall 2016 issue, he landed the position based on a interview at the International Student Interview Program in New York City – the University of Georgia School of Law belongs to a select group of law schools that participate in this annual LL.M. careers event.

Henke told the magazine that he applied here based on the recommendation from a law firm where Henke had clerked, Orrick Herrington Sutcliffe:

henketobias_sep2016‘Since I always wanted to go back to the U.S., I decided to apply for an LL.M. program. My former boss at Orrick was, by coincidence, an alumnus of [University of Georgia] and spoke highly of this school. Because I really liked Atlanta, it was obvious for me to come back to Georgia.’

Georgia’s a draw for Germans, the magazine reported:

The state of Georgia is home to more than 17,000 Germans and 450 German companies.

Henke cited an additional reason for preferring Georgia Law:

‘LL.M. students are always included in classes and viewed as equals.’

Details on our LL.M. curriculum and application process here.

ICRC survey: persons who have experienced war most value laws regulating armed conflict

logo-1People who’ve actually experienced war place greater value on regulating warfare than those who haven’t.

That appears to be one thought-provoking takeaway from People on War: Perspectives from 16 Countries, a report that the International Committee of the Red Cross released this morning.

More than 17,000 persons – in Afghanistan, China, Colombia, France, Iraq, Israel, Nigeria, Palestine, Russia, South Sudan, Switzerland, Syria (that is, Syrians in Lebanon), Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Yemen – were surveyed between June and September countries2016, “through online, face-to-face and computer-assisted telephone interviews.”

Time and again, persons in conflict-ridden countries showed more support for international humanitarian law:

► Of them, 84% agreed that it was wrong, and not “just part of war,” to “attac[k] religious and historical monuments in order to weaken the enemy” – compared with 72% in other states.

► And 73% in conflict states agreed that it was wrong, and not “just part of war,” to injure or kill humanitarian aid workers delivering aid in conflict zones – compared with 59% in other states.

Also notable were the variation in views on torture:

► Fully 100% in Yemen said torture is wrong and not “part of war.” Percentages dropped from there. Fewer than half the persons interviewed in Israel and Palestine said “wrong”; respectively, 44% and 35%.

► As for the United States, 54% called torture “wrong.” But when the question shifted somewhat – to whether “a captured enemy combatant” can “be tortured to obtain important military information” – the percentage of persons in the United States calling that wrong dropped to 30%, the 3d lowest among countries surveyed.

The survey presented the ICRC with an opportunity to reiterate the existence and importance of laws intended to protect civilians, persons no longer engaging in combat, and persons whom conflict has put to flight. These are issues we explored in our September 23 Georgia Law-ICRC event, “Humanity’s Common Heritage: Conference on the 2016 ICRC Commentary on the 1st Geneva Convention” (posts). On the matter of torture, for example, the report states:

“Torture and all other forms of ill-treatment are absolutely prohibited by international treaty and customary law. This applies to every State and to all parties to armed conflicts. There are no exceptions, whatever the circumstances. Whole communities are impacted by the corrosive effects of torture on society, especially when it goes unpunished, generating hatred and triggering a cycle of violence. What’s more, research shows that torture does not work, as the ‘information’ that is obtained is generally not reliable.”

The full report is available here.

(Cross-posted from Diane Marie Amann)

Founder of IntLawGrrls extends invitation to blog’s 10th Birthday Conference, March 3 at Georgia Law

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Why IntLawGrrls?

The need for an online forum giving voice to women who work in international law and policy began to take shape 10 years ago this autumn.

An issue of the day was Guantánamo; specifically, what was the United States to do now that the U.S. Supreme Court, in a June 2006 decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, had ruled President George W. Bush’s military commissions unconstitutional?

Many women had worked, spoken, or written on GTMO – not only in law review articles, but also in court pleadings. I was one of them, having published “Guantánamo” in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law in 2004 and served in 2006 as principal author of the amicus brief in Hamdan filed jointly by the National Institute of Military Justice and the Bar Association of the District of Columbia.

And yet, when Congress convened post-Hamdan hearings, witness after witness was exclusively male. Worse still, the perspectives these men advanced by no means covered the spectrum – no surprise given that all of them had served in the Executive Branch of the U.S. government, and only one staked any claim to expertise in human rights law. Nothing approximating either a nongovernmental or feminist perspective surfaced in those sessions on Capitol Hill.

News accounts of such manels got me thinking about launching a blog.

Opinio Juris, founded in November 2004, had revealed an international law community rife with readers and contributors. But posts by women were few, as was then and remains today the case on digital platforms. I imagined that a blog open only to women might attract women – that women would see it as both an invitation and an obligation to contribute. Going pink would set a strong contrast with OJ‘s baby-blue image.

The name? “IntLaw” was easy, and for obvious reasons.

“Grrls” was obvious too. The spelling’s angry “grr” owes much to the circa-1990s Riot Grrrls; the concept, to the Guerrilla Girls, a group that since 1985 has been wreaking feminist havoc in the male-dominated art world. (Years later, we would recognize Pussy Riot, a band-turned-movement that, like Guerrilla Girls, remains active.)

dowomenhavetobenaked2005smallrgbAs the Guerrilla Girls’ website recalls:

“They assumed the names of dead women artists and wore gorilla masks in public, concealing their identities and focusing on the issues rather than their personalities.”

And so did IntLawGrrls. Well, not the gorilla masks (at least not in public). But in the infant months after our birth-day on March 3, 2007, each of us assumed the name of a foremother as our pseudonym, and posted in her honor. I was Gráinne Ni Mháille, or Grace O’Malley, the Irish pirate who also would be embraced by contributors Fionnuala Ní Aoláin and Gráinne de Búrca. A charter contributor, Beth Van Schaack, took the name of her distant relative, Eleanor Roosevelt. It will come as little surprise to learn that others followed suit in honoring ER, who remains our blog’s proto-foremother. Another early contributor, Jaya Ramji-Nogales, posted in the name of the 19th Century Indian queen Lakshmi Bai.

A half-dozen months and scores of contributors later, we ‘Grrls began posting in our own names, though we continued to name foremothers both in introductory posts and in an honor roll posted online. Kathleen A. “Kate” Doty, for example, thus paid homage to Queen Lili‘uokalani, the last monarch of Hawai‘i.

clearerwicl_posterOver time, Beth, Jaya, Kate, and I evolved into the editors of IntLawGrrls. Our collaboration included hosting a conference at Tillar House, the American Society of International Law headquarters, and publishing a special issue of the International Criminal Law Review, dedicated to Judge Patricia M. Wald, on “Women and International Criminal Law.” We worked together through December 2012, when the blog took a couple-months’ hiatus and then revived. It’s been wonderful to watch the replenishment of energy and contributors at this new URL, thanks to Cecilia Marcela Bailliet and many others.

Then as now – nearly 10 years, hundreds of contributors, and thousands of posts later – IntLawGrrls mentors new voices and fosters community among contributors at all stages of their careers. Our periodic group photos are evidence of that. (At top is our photo from last spring’s ASIL annual meeting, when IntLawGrrl Betsy Andersen, 2d from right in top row, earned the Prominent Woman in International Law Award.)

To celebrate our utterly unexpected achievement, we’re throwing a party.

georgiawill_logoBeth, Jaya, Kate, and I have reunited to organize IntLawGrrls! 10th Birthday Conference. We welcome all of our vast IntLawGrrls community to join us on Friday, March 3, 2017 – on the precise date of our 10th birthday – at my home institution, the Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law, Athens, Georgia USA, which is hosting as part of our Georgia WILL initiative.

Details and our call for papers are available at our conference website and in the item Jaya posted last week. Suffice it to say that we welcome proposals, in English, French, or Spanish, from all in our community. Topics may include any issue of international, comparative, foreign, or transnational law or policy. We especially welcome contributions from subfields traditionally dominated by men. Academics and practitioners, students and professors, advocates and policymakers alike are most welcome to submit.

We’re planning a plenary aimed at getting us through the next several years – title is “strategies to promote women’s participation in shaping international law and policy amid the global emergence of antiglobalism” – and we hope to organize a few more according to participants’ interests. We look forward to an opportunity to network, to meet old friends and make new ones, to celebrate our accomplishments and lay plans for greater achievements in the coming decade.

I thank all of you for your support of our efforts this last decade, and look forward to seeing many of you here in March.

‘Nuff said.

(Cross-posted from IntLawGrrls blog, and written in personal capacity, as blog’s founder)