Month: November 2020

Professor Ringhand, Center’s Interim Director, takes part in University of Oxford panel on U.S. presidential election

Lori A. Ringhand, J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law and Interim Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center here at the University of Georgia School of Law, took part earlier this month in a University of Oxford panel discussion on the American electoral process.

The panel, entitled “‘Our Character is on the Ballot’: Reflections on the US Presidential Election 2020,” was hosted by Jesus College at Oxford. Ringhand, an Election Law scholar and recent US-UK Fulbright Distinguished Chair, earned her B.C.L. degree at Oxford. (prior posts)

Georgia Law clinics join to assist in litigation by immigrant women alleging abuse, retaliation while in ICE detention

Two clinics here at the University of Georgia School of Law have joined forces on behalf of women who allege they endured abusive gynecological and other medical treatments, as well as inhumane conditions and retaliation, while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), at a privately run facility in south Georgia.

At 9th Circuit, Georgia Law Appellate Litigation Clinic students press client’s case for asylum, withholding of removal, relief under Convention Against Torture

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard arguments this week in an immigration case prepared by a team of students in the Appellate Litigation Clinic here at the University of Georgia School of Law.

Georgia Law 3L Sarah Nelson argued on behalf of client Alicia Naranjo Garcia in Case No. 19-72803, Naranjo Garcia v. Barr. On account of the covid-19 pandemic, Nelson’s argument was delivered virtually, to a panel composed of Ninth Circuit Judges Ronald M. Gould and Michelle T. Friedland, along with U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Bough, sitting by designation. (Video here; Nelson is pictured above at lower left.)

Joining Nelson on the briefs were Jonathan Kaufman and Joe Scarborough, who earned their J.D.s earlier this year.  3L Maddie Conkel, one of Nelson’s classmates in the Appellate Litigation Clinic, helped Nelson prepare for the argument.

Together they represent appellant Naranjo Garcia, the mother of two children who are U.S. citizens. The client herself came to the United States after a cartel killed her husband, stole her husband’s property, tried to recruit her son, stole her home, and twice threatened to kill her.

Both the Immigration Judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals agreed that she had been persecuted, but found that her persecution was not “on account of” a protected ground.  Because of that, they denied her asylum and withholding of removal claims.  They also found that no public official would acquiesce to her being tortured if she were returned, and thus denied her claim under the Convention Against Torture.

The Ninth Circuit panel is now deliberating.

Georgia Law Professor Amann’s “Glimpses of Women at the Tokyo Tribunal” in just-published book

Professor Diane Marie Amann, holder of the Emily & Ernest Chair in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of our Dean Rusk International Law Center here at the University of Georgia School of Law, has published an essay entitled “Glimpses of Women at the Tokyo Tribunal.”

It appears in a new book, The Tokyo Tribunal: Perspectives on Law, History and Memory, produced by four editors: Professor Kerstin von Lingen, Universität Wien, Austria; Professor Philipp Osten, Keio University, Japan; and Dr. Viviane E. Dittrich and Jolana Makraiová, both of the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, Germany. 

These four took part last week in a launch discussion, archived at YouTube, along with two others among the book’s contributors: Professor Gerry Simpson, London School of Economics and Political Science, England; and Professor Yuma Totani, University of Hawai’i, United States.

Further contributing essays to The Tokyo Tribunal were, besides Amann, David M. Crowe, Diane Orentlicher, Kayoko Takeda, Robert Cribb, Donald M. Ferencz, Marina Aksenova, David Cohen, Narrelle Morris, Beatrice Trefalt, Sandra Wilson, Franziska Seraphim, Kuniko Ozaki, and Christoph Safferling.

Here’s the abstract for Amann’s contribution (prior post):

Compared to its Nuremberg counterpart, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East has scarcely been visible in the seven decades since both tribunals’ inception. Recently the situation has changed, as publications of IMTFE documents have occurred alongside divers legal and historical writings, as well as two films and a miniseries. These new accounts give new visibility to the Tokyo Trial – or at least to the roles that men played at those trials. This essay identifies several of the women at Tokyo and explores roles they played there, with emphasis on lawyers and analysts for the prosecution and the defense. As was the case with my 2010 essay, “Portraits of Women at Nuremberg,” the discussion is preliminary, offering glimpses of the Tokyo women in an effort to encourage further research.

The Tokyo Tribunal volume, which was published by the Brussels-based Torkel Opsahl Academic Epublisher, may be downloaded as an e-book, or ordered in hard copy, here. It is also available at outlets such as Amazon.

It is the third book in the “Nuremberg Academy Series” produced by the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, located at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany. It was in Courtroom 400 of that building that a conference took place which launched this just-published volume.

(Cross-posted from Diane Marie Amann)

Georgia Law Professors Durkee, Cohen, and Amann present at annual ASIL Midyear Meeting and Research Forum

Last weekend marked the annual Midyear Meeting and Research Forum of the American Society of International Law, held online because of the ongoing pandemic. This year as in the past, University of Georgia School of Law faculty played key roles. They are:

► Melissa J. “MJ” Durkee, the Allen Post Professor at Georgia Law. She participated in meetings of two key ASIL entities; that is, the Executive Council, on which she is serving a 3-year term, and the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law, at whose meeting she presented on behalf of the publication’s online platform, AJIL Unbound, for which she serves as Supervising Editor. Additionally, during the Midyear Meeting’s Research Forum, Durkee gave a presentation on the topic of “Interpretive Entrepreneurs,” at a panel entitled “International Law in Theory.”

► Harlan G. Cohen, the Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of our Dean Rusk International Law Center. Also a member of the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law, Cohen gave a report at that board’s meeting on “International Decisions,” the AJIL section for which he has served as Editor. He also helped organize a keynote panel on “Multilateralism & International Institutions,” part of ASIL’s International Law and the 2020 Election Series.

► Diane Marie Amann, the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law and our Center’s other Faculty Co-Director. She continued a second term as an ASIL Counsellor. As part of a Research Forum panel entitled “Historic Roots of International Law,” Amann presented her work in progress, “Intersectional Sovereignties: Dr. Aline Chalufour, Woman at Nuremberg – and at Paris, Ottawa, and Dalat.”

Georgia Law is an Academic Partner of ASIL, for more than a century the United States’ premier learned society in international law.